Titanic: Spencer and Jennifer
by KeepCalmandKissDrSpencerReid
Summary: Based on the 1997 movie. Jennifer Jareau meets Spencer Reid on the Titanic. Will their love survive what will happen on April 15,1912? Read to find out. To remember the 100th anniversary of the sinking. Now Complete! Review please!
1. Story Info

New Story Info:

My new story is a Criminal Minds version of Titanic it's going to be called. Titanic: Spencer and Jennifer

Characters that the team will be playing!

Jennifer Jareau will be the character of Rose.

Spencer Reid is the character of Jack

Will LaMontagne Jr – Caledon Hockley

Penelope Garcia – Trudy (Rose's maid)

Aaron Hotchner – Fabrizio

Emily Prentiss – Helga

David Rossi – Brock Lovett

Derek Morgan – Bobby Bruel

Kevin Lynch – Lewis Bodine

Ashley Seaver – Lizzie (Rose's granddaughter)

Jason Gideon – Sub pilot

This story will be like the movie. I will have the character quirks into the characters in this story. Review me with your thoughts on this concept!


	2. 1

1996

Blackness.

All of a sudden two faint lights appear, close together…growing brighter. They resolve into two deep submersibles, free falling toward us like express elevators. One is ahead of the other. Three people are in one of the submersibles. Inside it is cramped and is a seven feet sphere, crammed with equipment. Jason Gideon is the pilot, he sits hunched over her control. Next to her is David Rossi, he is in charge of the expedition and is asleep. Kevin Lynch is also asleep. He is an R.O.V. (Remotely Operated Vehicle) pilot and is the resident Titanic expert. Jason glances at the bottom sonar and makes a ballast adjustment.

A pale, dead-flar lunar landscape. It gets brighter, lit as Mir One drops to the seafloor in a downblast from its thrusters. It hits the bottom after its two hour free-fall with a loud BONK. Rossi and Lynch are both jerked awake at the landing.

"We are here, gentlemen." Jason tells the two men.

Five minutes later the two subs skim over the seafloor to the sound of sidescan sonar and the thrum of big thrusters. Kevin is watching the sidescan sonar display, where the outline of a huge pointed object is visible. Andi lies prone, driving the sub, her face pressed to the center port.

"Come left a little. She's right in front of us, eighteen meters. Fifteen…Thirteen…you should see it."

"Do you see it? I don't see it…there!"

Out of the darkness, like a ghostly apparation, the bow of the ship appears. Its knife-edge prow is coming straight at us, seeming to plow the bottom sediment like ocean waves. It towers above the seafloor, standing just as it landed 84 years prior.

The Titanic…or what is left of her. Mir One goes up and over the bow railing, intact except for an overgrowth of "rusticles" draping it like mutated Spanish moss.

David is holding a video camera and it's aimed at his face.

"It still gets me every time."

He points the camera to the front viewpoint, looking over Jason's shoulder, to the bow railing visible in the lights beyond. Jason turns to face him.

"Is it your guilt? Because of stealing from the dead?" he asks with a scowl.

"Thanks, Jason. Work with me, here."

David resumes his serious, pensive gaze out the front port, with the camera aimed at himself at arm's length.

"It still gets me every time…to see the sad ruin of the great ship sitting here, where she landed at 2:30 in the morning, April 15, 1912, after her long fall from the world above."

Jason rolls her eyes at the bullshit that seems to always radiate from his mouth.

"You are so full of shit, boss." Kevin laughs and watches the sonar.

Mir Two drives aft down the starboard side, past the huge anchor while Mir One passes over the seemingly endless forecastle deck, with its massive anchor chains still laid out in two neat rows, its bronze windlass caps gleaming. The 22 foot long subs are like white bugs next to the enormous wreck.

"Dive nine. Here we are again on the deck of Titanic…two and a half miles down. The pressure is three tons per square inch, enough to crush us like a freight train going over an anut if our hull fails. These windows are nine inches thick and if they go, it's sayonara in two microseconds.

Mir Two lands on the boat deck, next to the ruins of the Officer's Quarters. Mir One lands on the roof of the deck house nearby.

"Right. Let's get to work." David tells Kevin.

Kevin slips on a pair of 3D electronic goggles, and grabs the joystick controls of the ROV. Outside of the sub, the ROV, a small orange and black robot called Snoop Dog, lifts from its cradle and flie forward.

"Walkin' the dog."

Snoop Dog drives itself away from the sub, paying out its umbilical behind it like a robot yo-yo. Its twin stereo-video cameras swivel like insect eyes. The ROV descends through an open shaft that once was the beautiful First Class Grand Staircase. Snoop Dog goes down several decks, then moves laterally into the First Class Reception Room.

Dave and Kevin see through the monitors, that the ROV is moving through the cavernous interior. The remains of the ornate hand-carved woodwork which gave the ship its elegance move through the floodlights, the lines blurred by slow dissolution and descending rusticle formations. Stalactites of rust hang down so that at times it looks like a natural grotto, then the scene shifts and the lines of a ghostly undersea mansion can be seen again. They see a grand piano in amazing good shape, crushed on its side against a wall. The keys gleam black and white in the lights. A chandelier, still hanging from the ceiling by wire…glinting as Snoop moves around it. The lights play across the floor, revealing a champagne bottle, then some White Star Line china…a woman's high-top. Then something eerie: what looks like a child's skull resolves into the porcelain head of a doll.

Snoop enters a corridor which is much better preserved. Here and there a door still hangs on its rusted hinges. An ornate piece of molding, a wall sconce…hint at the grandeur of the past. The ROV turns and goes through a black doorway, entering room B-52, the sitting room of a promenade suite, one of the most luxurious staterooms on Titanic.

"I'm in the sitting room. Heading for bedroom B-54." Kevin tells Dave.

"Stay off the floor. Don't stir it up like you did yesterday."

"I'm tryin' boss."

Glinting in the lights are the brass fixtures of the near-perfectly preserved fireplace. An albino Galathea crab crawls over it. Nearby are the remains of a divan and a writing desk. The Dog crosses the ruins of the once elegant room towards another door. It squeezes through the doorframe, scraping rust and wood chunks loose on both sides. It moves out of a cloud of rust and keeps on going.

"I'm crossing the bedroom." Kevin tells Dave and Andi.

The remains of a pillared canopy bed. Broken chairs and a dresser. Through the collapsed wall of the bathroom, the porcelain commode and bathtub look almost new, gleaming in the dark.

"Okay, I want to see what's under that wardrobe door." Dave tells Kevin.

The ROV deploys its manipulator arms and starts moving debris aside. A lamp is lifted, its ceramic colors as bright as they were in 1912.

"Easy, Kevin. Take it slow."

Kevin grips a wardrobe door, lying at an angle in a corner, and pulls it with Snoop's gripper. It moves reluctantly in a cloud of silt. Under it is a dark object. The silt clears and Snoop's cameras show them what was under the door.

"Oooh, boss, are you seein' what I'm seein'?"

Dave smiles like he is seeing the Holy Grail.

"It's payday, boys."

On the monitor; in the glare of the lights, is the object of their quest: a small steel combination safe.

On the deck of the Keldysh, the safe, is dripping wet in the afternoon sun, is lowered onto the deck of a ship by a winch cable.

A crowd has gathered, including most of the crew of the Keldysh, the sub crews, and a hand-wringing money guy named Derek Morgan, who represents the limited partners. There is also a documentary video crew, hired by Rossi to cover his moment of glory.

Everyone crowds around the safe. Behind the crowding Mir Two is being lowered into its cradle on deck by a massive hydralic arm. Mir One is already recovered with Kevin Lynch following David Rossi as he bounds over to the safe like a kid on Christmas morning.

"Who's the best? Say it." Kevin asks Dave.

"You are, Kevin." He turns to the video crew. "You rolling?"

"Rolling."

Dave nods to his technicians, and they set about drilling the safe's hinges. During this operation, Dave amps the suspence, working the lens to fill the time.

"Well, here it is, the moment of truth. Here's where we find out if the time, the sweat, the money spent to charter this ship and these subs, to come out here to the middle of the North Atlantic…were worth it. If what we think is in that safe…it will be."

Rossi grins wolfishly in anticipation of his greatest find yet. The door is pried loose. It clangs onto the deck. Rossi moves closer, peering into the safe's wet interior. He takes out wet cash and and a sketchbook, that all.

"Shit."

"No diamond." A russian crewmember of the Keldysh says.

"You know, boss, this happened to Geraldo and his career never recovered." Kevin tells him.

"Turn that camera off."

In the Lab and Preservation Room technicians are carefully removing some papers from the safe and placing them in a tray of water to separate them safely. Nearby, other artifacts from the stateroom are being washed and preserved.

Derek is on the satellite phone with the investors. Dave is yelling at the video crew.

"You send out what I tell you when I tell you. I'm signing your paychecks, not 60 Minutes. Now get set up for the uplink."

Derek covers the phone and turns to Dave.

"The partners want to know how its going?"

"How it's going? It' s going like a first date in prison, what ya think?"

Dave grabs the phone from Derek and goes instantly smooth.

"Hi Barry? Look, it wasn't in the safe…no, look, don't worry about it, there are still plenty of places it could be…in the floor debris in the suite, in the mother's room, in the purser's safe on C Deck…"

Dave sees something on the monitor and sees a drawing.

"Hang on a second."

A tech coaxes some letters in the water tray to one side with a tong…revealing a conte crayon drawing of a woman.

Dave looks closely at the drawing, which is in excellent shape, though its edges have partially disintegrated. The woman is beautiful, and beautifully rendered. In her late teens or early twenties, she is nude, though posed with a kind of casual modesty. She is on an Empire divan, in a pool of light that seems to radiate outward from her eyes. Scrawled in the lower right corner is the date: April 14 1912. And the initials SR.

The girl is not entirely nude. At her throat is a diamond with one large stone hanging in the center.

Dave grabs a reference photo from the clutter on the lab table. It is a period black-and-white photo of a diamond necklace on a black velvet jeweler's display stand. He holds it next to the drawing. It is clearly the same piece…a complex setting with a massive central stone which is almost heart-shaped.

"I'll be God damned."


	3. 2

Ashley Cook is in her grandmother Jennifer Cook's living room. She is watching CNN.

"Treasure hunter David Rossi is best known for finding Spanish gold in sunken galleons in the Caribbean. Now he is using deep submergence technology to work two and a half miles down at another famous wreck…the middle of the Atlantic…hello David?"

"Yes, hi, Tracy. You know, Titanic is not just a shipwreck. Titanic is THE shipwreck. It's the Mount Everest of shipwrecks."

In the ceramics room 100 year old, Jennifer is throwing a pot on a potter's wheel. The liquid red clay covers her hands…hands that are gnarled and age-spotted, but still surprisingly strong and supple. Elle walks into to assist her.

"_I've planned this expedition for three years, and we're out here recovering some amazing things…things that will have enormous historical and educational value."_

"_But it's no secret that education is not your main purpose. You're a treasure hunter. So what is the treasure you're hunting?"_

"_I'd rather show you than tell you, and we think we're very close to doing just that."_

Jennifer might look aged but her eyes are just as bright and alive as those of a young girl. Jennifer gets up and walks into the living room, wiping pottery clay from her hands with a rag. Her cat Spencer gets up and comes in with her. Ashley rushes to help her.

"Turn that up please, dear."

"Your expedition is at the center of a storm of controversy over salvage rights and even ethics. Many are calling you a grave robber."

"Nobody called the recovery of the artifacts from King Tut's tomb grave robbing. I have museum-trained experts here, making sure this stuff is preserved and catalogued properly. Look at this drawing, which was found today…"

The video camera pans off of Dave to the drawing, in a tray of water. The image of the woman with the necklace fills the screen.

"…a piece of paper that's been underwater for 84 years…and my team are able to preserve it intact. Should this have remained unseen at the bottom of the ocean for eternity, when we can see it and enjoy it now?"

Jennifer is galvanized by this image. Her mouth hangs open in amazement.

"I'll be God damned."

David Rossi is on the Keldysh deck and it's nighttime. The Mir subs are being launched. Mir Two is already in the water, and Rossi is getting ready to climb into Mir One when Derek Morgan runs up to him.

"There's a satellite call for you."

"Derek, we're launching. See these submersibles here, going in the water? Take a message."

"No, trust me, you want to take this call."

"This better be good." He takes the phone from him.

"You gotta speak up she's kind of old."

"Great."

He pushes down the blinking line. The call is from Emily.

"This is David Rossi. What can I do for you, Mrs?"

"Cook. Jennifer Cook."

"Mrs. Cook?"

"_I was just wondering if you had found the Heart of the Ocean, yet, Mr. Rossi."_

Dave almost drops the phone. Derek sees his shocked expression…

"I told you that you wanted to take this call."

"Alright. You have my attention, Jennifer. Can you tell me who the woman in the picture is?"

"_Oh yes. The woman in the picture is me."_

The next day Jennifer is holding Spencer and Ashley are in a helicopter. Jennifer looks out calmyly.

Dave and Kevin are watching Mir Two being swung over the side to start a dive.

"She's a goddamned liar! A nutcase. Like that…what's her name? That Russian babe…Anastasia."

"They're inbound." Derek yells.

Dave nods and the three of them head forward to meet the approaching helicopter.

"Jennifer Jareau was 17 when she died on the Titanic. If she'd lived, she'd be over a hundred now."

"A hundred and one next month." Dave informs Kevin.

"Okay, so she's a very old goddamned liar. I traced her as far back as the 20s…she was an actress. An actress…that's your first clue Sherlock. Her name was Jennifer Reid. Then she married a guy named Cook, moved to Cedar Rapids, and she punched out a couple of kids. Now Cook's dead, and from what I've heard Cedar Rapids is dead."

The helicopter approaches the ship, forcing Dave to yell over the rotors.

"And every body who knows about the diamond is supposed to be dead…or on this boat. But she knows about it. And I want to hear what she has to say. Got it?"

The helicopter lands on the helipad. Dave, Derek and Kevin watch as the helicopter crew chief hands out about ten suitcases, and then Jennifer is lowered to the deck in a wheelchair by Keldysh crewmen.

"Mrs. LaMontage. David Rossi welcome to the Keldysh."

"Thank you."

Jennifer tells him

Ashley follows her out, carrying Spencer. Dave shakes Ashley's hand.

"Miss LaMontagne."

"Hi."

Ashley pushes Jennifer's wheelchair and the crew chief hands David a goldfish bowl with several fish in it.

"She doesn't travel light does she?" Kevin whispers to Derek.

Ashley is unpacking Jennifer's things in her small stateroom. Jennifer is placing a number of framed photos on the bureau, arranging them carefully next to the fishbowl. Dave and Kevin are in the doorway.

"Is your stateroom alright?"

"Yes. Very nice. Have you met my granddaughter, Ashley? She takes care of me."

"Yes. We just met a few minutes ago, grandma. Remember, up on deck?"

"Oh, yes."

Dave looks at Kevin. Kevin rolls his eyes. Jennifer finishes arranging her photographs. We get a general glimpse of them: the usual snapshots…children and grandchildren, her late husband.

"There, that's nice. I have to have my pictures when I travel. And Spencer of course. Isn't that right sweetie."

"Would you like anything?" Dave asks her.

"Yes. I would like to see my drawing."

Jennifer looks at the drawing in its tray of water, confronting herself across a span of 84 years. Until they can figure out the best way to preserve it, they have to keep it immersed. It sways and ripples, almost as if alive.

Dave has the reference photo of the necklace in his hand.

"Louis the Sixteenth wore a fabulous stone, called the Blue Diamond of the Crown, which disappeared in 1792, about the time Louis lost everything from the neck up. The theory goes that the crown diamond was chopped too…recut into a heart-like shape…and it became Le Coeur de la Mer. The Heart of the Ocean. Today it would be worth more than the Hope Diamond.

"It was a dreadful, heavy thing. I only wore it once."

"You actually believe this is you, grandma?"

"It is me, dear. Wasn't I a dish?"

"I tracked it down through insurance records…an old claim that was settled under terms of absolute secrecy. Do you know who the claimant was Jennifer?"

"I suppose someone named LaMontagne, I would imagine."

"William LaMontagne,Sr. right. Pittsburgh steel tycoon. For a diamond necklace his son William LaMontagne,Jr. bought in France for his fiancee…you…a week before he sailed on Titanic. And the claim was filed right after the sinking. So the diamond must have gone down with the ship."

He turns to Ashley.

"See the date?"

"April 14, 1912."

"If your grandma is who she says she is, she was wearing the diamond the day Titanic sank." Kevin told her.

"And that makes you my new best friend."

Dave crosses the room.

"Over here are a few things we've recovered from your staterooms."

Laid out on a worktable are fifty or so objects, from mundane to valuable. Jennifer, shrunken in her chair, can barely see over the table top. With a trembling hand she lifts a tortoise shell hand mirror, inlaid with mother of pearls. She caresses it wonderingly.

"This was mine. How extraordinary! It looks the same the last time I saw it."

She turns the mirror over and looks at her ancient face in the cracked glass.

"The reflection has changed a bit."

She spies something else, a silver and moonstone art-nouveau brooch.

"My mother's brooch. She wanted to go back for it. Caused quite a fuss."

Jennifer picks up an ornate art-nouveau hair comb. A jade butterfly takes flight on the ebony handle of the comb. She turns it slowly, remembering. We can see that she is experiencing a rush of images and emotions that have lain dormant for eight decades as she handles the butterfly comb.

"Are you ready to go back to Titanic?"

The five of them are in the imaging shack of the Keldysh. It is a darkened room lined with TV monitors. Images of the wreck fill the screens, fed from Mir One and Two, and the two ROVs, Snoop Dog and Duncan.

"Live from 12,000 feet." Kevin tells Jennifer.

She stares raptly at the screens. She is enthralled by one in particular, an image of the bow railing. It obviously means something to her. Dave is studying her reactions carefully.

"The bow's struck in the bottom like an axe, from the impact. Here…I can run a simulation we worked up on this monitor over here."

Ashley turns the chair so Jennifer can see the screen of Kevin's computer.

"We've put together the world's largest database on the Titanic. Okay, here…"

"Jennifer might not want to see this, Kevin."

"No, no. It's fine. I'm curious."

Kevin starts the simulation on the screen.

"She hits the berg on the starboard side and it sort of bumps along…punching holes like morse code…dit dit dit…down the side. Now she's flooding in the forward compartments…and the water spills over the tops of the bulkheads, going aft. As her bow is going down, her stern is rising up…slow at first…and then faster and faster until she's got her whole ass in the air, maybe 20 or 30 thousand tons…the hull wasn't designed for this kind of pressure…so SKRTTT!...she splits. Right down to the keel, which acts like a big hinge. Now the bow swings down and the stern falls back level…but the weight of the bow pulls the stern up vertical, and then the bow section detaches, heading for the bottom. The stern bobs like a cork, floods and goes under about 2:20 am. Two hours and forty minutes after the collision."

The simulation then follows the bow section as it sinks. Jennifer watches this clinical dissection of the disaster without emotion.

"The bow pulls out of its dive and planes away, almost a half a mile, before it hits the bottom going maybe 12 miles an hour. KABOOM! The sterm implodes as it sinks, from the pressure, and rips apart from the force of the current as it falls, landing like a big pile of junk. Pretty cool huh?"

"Thank you for the fine forensic analysis, Mr. Lynch. Of course the experience of it was somewhat different."

"Will you share it with us?"

Jennifer's eyes go back to the screens, showing the sad ruins far below them. Jennifer recognizes one of the Wellin davits, still in place. She hears ghostly waltz music. The faint and echoing sound of an officer's voice, English accented, calling "Women and children only."

Jennifer is shaken by the flood of memories and emotions. Her eyes well up and she puts her head down, sobbing quietly. Ashley stands to take her out of the room.

"I'm taking her to rest."

"No."

"Come on grandma."

"No!"

"Tell us, Jennifer." Dave said gently.

"It's been 84 years…"

"Just tell us what you can…"

"Do you want to hear this or not Mr. Rossi. It's been 84 years…and I can still smell the fresh paint. The china had never been used. The sheets had never been slept in."

Dave switches on the minirecorder and sets it near her.

"Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams. And it was. It really was…"


	4. 3

1912

Southampton, England. April 10, 1912.

It is almost noon on sailing day. A crowd of hundreds are on pier next to the Titanic. On the pier horse drawn vehicles, motorcars and lorries, move slowly through the dense throng. The atmosphere is one of excitement and general giddiness. People embrace in tearful farewells, or wave and shot bon voyage wishes to friends and relatives on the deck above.

A white Renault, leading a silver-gray Daimler-Benz, pushes through the crowd leaving a wake in the press of people. Around the cars people are streaming to board the ship, jostling wth hustling seamen and strokers, porters, and barking White Star Line officials.

The Renault stops and the liveried driver scurries to open the door for a young woman dressed in a stunning white and purple outfit, with an enormous purple hat. She is 17 years old and beautiful, regal of bearing, with piercing eyes. It's Jennifer.

"I don't see what all the fuss is about. It doesn't look any bigger than the Mauretania.

A personal valet opens the door on the other side of the car for William LaMontagne, the 30 year old heir to his father's fortune. And Jennifer's mother Erin Strauss Jareau.

"You can be blasé about some things, Jennifer, but not about Titanic. It's over a hundred feet longer than Mauretania, and far more luxurious."

Turn to Erin

"Your daughter is much too hard to impress, Erin."

"So this is the ship they say is unsinkable."

"It is unsinkable. God himself couldn't sink this ship."

The entire entourage of rich Americans is impeccably turned out, a quintessential example of the Edwardian upper class, complete with servants. Will's valet, George Foyet, is a tall and impassive, dour as an undertaker. Behind him are two maids Elle Greenaway, Erin's personal servant and Penelope Garcia, Jennifer's.

A White Star Line porter scurries towards them, harried by last minute loading.

"Sir, you'll have to check your baggage through the main terminal, round that way…"

Will nonchalantly hands the man a fiver. The porter's eyes dilate.

"I put my fait in you, good sir."

Will points out Foyet.

"See my man, here."

"Yes, sir. My pleasure, sir."

The porter tells him with gratitude. Will never tires of the effect of money on the unwashed masses.

"These trunks here, and 12 more in the Daimler. We'll have all this lot up in the rooms." Foyet tells the porter.

The man looks stricken when he sees the enormous pile of steamer trunks and suitcases loading down the second car, including wooden crates and a steel safe. He whistles frantically for some cargo handlers nearby who come running.

Will leaves the minions to scramble. He quickly checks his pocket watch.

"We'd better hurry. This way ladies."

Will, Erin and Jennifer make their way to the first class gangway. They move into the crowd. Penelope is holding Jennifer's bags from her most recent purchases…things to delicate for the baggage handlers.

Will leads, weaving between vehicles and handcarts, hurrying passengers (mostly second class and steerage) and well-wishers. Most of the first class passengers are avoiding the smelly press of the dockside crowd by using an eleveated boarding bridge, twenty feet above.

They pass a well-dressed young man cranking the handle of a wooden Biograph camera mounted on a tripod. Daniel Marvin is filming his young bride in front of the Titanic. Mary Marvin stands stiffly and smiles, self-conscious.

"Look up at the ship, darling, that's it. You're amazed! You can't believe how big it is! Like a mountain. That's great."

Mary Marvin, without an acting fiber in her body, does a bad Clara Bow pantomime of awe, hands raised.

Will is jostled by two yelling steerage boys who shove past. And he is bumped again a second later by the boys' father.

"Steady!" Ian tells the man.

"Sorry squire!"

The Cockney father pushes on, after his kids, shouting.

"Steerage swine. Apparently missed his annual bath."

"Honestly, Will, if you weren't forever booking everything at the last instant, we could have gone through the terminal instead of running along the dock like some squalid immigrant family."

"All part of my charm, Erin. At any rate, it was my darling fiancee's beauty rituals which made us late."

"You told me to change." Jennifer told him.

"I couldn't let you wear black on sailing day, sweet pea. It's bad luck."

"I felt like black."

"Here I've pulled every string I could to book us on the grandest ship in history, in her most luxurious suites…and you act as if you're going to your execution."

Jennifer looks up as the hull of Titanic looms over them…a great iron wall, Bible black and sever. Ian motions her forward, and she enters the gangway to the D Deck doors with a sense of overwhelming dread.

"_It was the ship of dreams…to everyone else. To me it was a slave ship, taking me back to America in chains…"_

Will's hand closes possessively over Jennifer's hand. He escorts her up the gangway and the black hull of Titanic swallows them.

"_Outwardly I was everything a well brought up girl should be. Inside, I was screaming."_

Several blocks away. The steamer's whistle echoes across Southampton.

Inside a smokey pub. It is crowded with dockworkers and crew. Four men in working class clothes play poker.

Spencer Reid and Aaron Hotchner, both about 20, Spencer is from America and Aaron is from the White Chapel district in London. They exchange a glance as the other two players argue in Swedish.

"Hit me again, Sven."

Sven gives him the card and slips it into his hand. He puts on his poker face when he sees his cards. Aaron licks his lips nervously as he refuses a card. All four of them look at the middle of the table. Bills and coins from four countries. This has been going on for a while. Sitting on top of the money are two 3rd Class tickets for RMS Titanic.

The Titanic's whistle blows again. Final warning.

"The moment of truth boy, someone's life's about to change."

Aaron and the two Swedes put their cards down. Spencer still holds his close.

"Let's see… Aaron got nothing. Olaf, you've got squat. Sven, uh oh…two pair…mmm."

Spencer looks at Aaron.

"Sorry Aaron."

"What sorry? What you got? You lose my money?" he mutters curses under his breath.

"Sorry, you're not gonna see your mom again for a long time…"

He slaps a full house down on the table.

"…'cause you're goin' to America! Full house boys!"

"Yes America."

"I'm goin' home."

"No mates. Titanic go to America in five minutes."

"Shit! Come on, Aaron!"

He grabs their stuff.

"Come on!"

Spencer and Aaron are running, carrying everything they own in the world in the kit bags on their shoulders, sprint towards the pier.

"Spencer how'd you know we'd win?"

"I used my math skills to make sure I had a full house."

"You're a smart bastard, you are Spencer."

"So are you, my Cockney friend."

They reach the bottom of the ramp just as Sixth Officer Moody detaches it at the top. It starts to swing down from the gangway doors.

"Wait! We're passengers!"

Spencer is flushed and panting, he waves the tickets.

"Have you been through the inspection queue?"

Officer Moody asks.

"Of course! Anyway, we don't have lice, we're American."

He looks at Aaron.

"Both of us."

"Right come aboard."

Moody has Quartermaster Rowe reattach the gangway. Spencer and Aaron come aboard. Moody glances at the tickets, then passes Spencer and

Aaron through to Rowe. Rowe looks at the names on the tickets to enter them in the passenger list.

"Okay Reid and Hotchner."

Spencer and Aaron whoop with victory as they run down the white-painted corridero…grinning from ear to ear.

"We are the luckiest sons of bitches in the world!"

Spencer and Aaron burst through a door onto the aft well deck. As they run across the deck and up the steel stairs to the poop deck. They get to the rail and Spencer starts to yell and wave to the crowd on the dock.

"You know somebody?"

Aaron asks confusingly.

"Of course not. That's not the point."

He tells Aaron. And turns back to the crowd.

"Goodbye! Goodbye! I'll miss you!"

"Goodbye! I will never forget you!"

Aaron tells the crowd.

The crowd of cheering well-wishers wave heartily as a black wall of metal moves to them. Titanic starts her maiden voyage.


	5. 4

1912

Spencer and Aaron walk down a narrow corridor with doors lining both sides. There is total confusion as people argue over luggage in several languages, or wander in confusion in the labyrinth. They pass emigrants studying the signs over the doors, and looking up the words in phrase books.

Spencer and Aaron find their berth. It is a modest cubicle, painted enamel white, with four bunks. Exposed pipes overhead. There are two other men already there. Anthony DiNozzo and Timothy McGee. Spencer throws his kit on one bunk while Aaron takes the other.

In B-52 Jennifer is looking through her new paintings. There is a Monet of water littles, a Degas of dancers, and a few abstract works. They are all unknown paintings…lost works. Will is out on the covered deck, which has potted trees and vines on trellises, talking through the doorway to Jennifer in the sitting room.

"God not those fingers paintings again they certainly are a waste of money."

Jennifer looks at Penelope.

"The difference in my taste of art from Will's is that I have some. It's like in a dream or something…there's truth but no logic.

"What's his name Miss Jennifer?"

Penelope asks her.

"Something Picasso."

Will is coming into the sitting room.

"Something Picasso. He'll never amount to a thing. He won't trust me. At least they were cheap."

A porter wheels Will's private safe into the room on a hand truck.

"Put that in the wardrobe."

Will indicates to the porter.

In her bedroom, Jennifer enters with the large Degas of the dancers. She sets it on the dresser, near the canopy bed. Penelope is hanging up some of Jennifer's clothes.

"It smells so brand new. Like they built it all just for us. I mean…just to think that tonight, when I crawl between the sheet, I'll be the first…"

Penelope tells Jennifer with excitement and Will appears in the doorway of Jennifer's bedroom looking at Jennifer.

"And when I crawl between the sheets tonight, I'll still be the first."

"Excuse me, Miss."

Penelope blushes at the innuendo and edges around Will and makes a quick exit. Will comes up behind Jennifer and puts his hands on her shoulders. An act of possession, not intimacy.

"The first and only. Forever."

Jennifer's expression shows how bleak a prospect this is for her, now.

A broad shouldered woman in an enormous feathered hat comes up the gangway, carrying a suitcase in each hand, a spindly porter running to catch up with her to take the bags.

"Well, I wasn't about to wait all day for you, sonny. Take 'em the rest of the way if you think you can manage."

"_At Cherbourg a woman came aboard named Margaret Brown, but we all called her Molly. History would call her the Unsinkable Molly Brown. Her husband had struck gold somewhere out west, and she was what mother called "new money. By the next afternoon we had made our final stop and we were steaming west from the coast of Ireland, with nothing out ahead of us but ocean…"_

The ship glows with the warm creamy light of late afternoon. Spencer and Aaron stand right at the bow gripping the curving railing. Spencer leans over, looking down fifty feet to where the prow cuts the surface like a knife, sending up two glassy sheets of water.

On the Bridge Captain Smith turns from the binnacle to First Officer William Murdoch.

"Take her to sea Mister Murdoch. Let's stretch her legs."

Murdoch moves the engine telegraph lever to All Ahead Full.

In the engine room the telegraph clangs and moves to All Ahead Full.

"All ahead full!"

Chief Engineer Bell tells his men.

On the catwalk Thomas Andrews, the shipbuilder, watches carefully as the engineers and greasers scramble to adjust valves. Towering above them are the twin reciprocating engines, four stories tall, their ten-foot-long connecting rods surging up and down with the turning of the massive crankshafts. The engines thunder like the footfalls of marching giants.

In the boiler rooms the stokers chant a song as they hurl coal into the roaring furnaces. The black gang are covered with sweat and coal dust, their muscles working like part of the machinery as they toil in the hellish glow.

Captain Smith steps out of the enclosed bridge onto the wing. He stands with his hands on the rail, looking every bit the storybook picture of a Captain…a great patriarch of the sea.

"Twenty one knots, sir!"

First Officer Murdoch tells the captain.

Smith accepts a cup of tea from Fifth Officer Lowe. He contentedly watches the white V of water hurled outwards from the bows like an expression of his own personal power. They are invulnerable, towering over the sea.

At the bow Spencer and Aaron lean far over, looking down.

In the glassy bow-wave two dolphins appear, under the water, running fast just in front of the steel blade of the prow. They do it for the sheer joy and exultation of motion. Spencer watches the dolphins and grins. They breach, jumping clear of the water and then dive back, crisscrossing in front of the bow, dancing ahead of the juggernaut.

Aaron looks forward across the Atlantic, staring into the sun sparkles.

"I can see the Statue of Liberty Already. Very small of course."

He grins at Spencer

"I'm the King of the World!"

Spencer whoops and hollars with excitement as he puts his hands out like he's flying.

In the Palm Court Restaurant Jennifer sits bored as she hears Bruce Ismay talk.

"She is the largest moving object ever made by the hand of man in all history and our master shipbuilder, Mr. Andrews here, designed her from the keel plates up."

"Well, I may have knocked her together, but the idea was Mr. Ismay's. He envisioned a steamer so grand in scale, and so luxurious in its appointments that its supremacy would never be challenged. And here she is willed into solid reality."

Thomas Andrews says disliking the attention.

"Why're ships always bein' called she? Is it because men think half the women around have big sterns and should be weighed in tonnage?"

The all laugh.

The waiter arrives to take orders. Jennifer lights a cigarette.

"You know I don't like that, Jennifer."

Erin tells her daughter and Jennifer blows the smoke in her face.

"She knows."

Will takes the cigarette from her and stubs it out.

"We'll both have the lamb. Rare with a little mint sauce. You like lamb, don't you sweet pea?"

Molly is watching the dynamic between Jennifer, Will and Erin.

"So, you gonna cut her meat for her too there, Will?"

Molly turns to Ismay.

"Hey, who came up with the name Titanic? You Bruce?"

"Yes, actually. I wanted to convy sheer size. And size means stability, luxury…and safety."

"Do you know of Dr. Freud? His ideas about the male preoccupation with size might be of particular interest to you, Mr. Ismay."

Jennifer tells him. Andrews chokes on his breadstick, suppressing laughter.

"My God, Jennifer, what's gotten into you?"

Erin asks scandelized.

"Excuse me."

Jennifer stalks away.

"I do apologize."

Erin says mortified.

"She's a pistol, Will. You sure you can handle her?"

Molly asks sarcastically.

"Well, I may have to start minding what she reads from now on…won't I Mrs. Brown."

Will answers her question bitterly.

Spencer sits on a bench in the sun. Titanic's wake spreads out behind him to the horizon. He has his knees pulled up, supporting a leather bound sketching pad, his only valuable possession. With conte crayon he draws rapidly, using sure strokes. An emigrant from Manchester named Cartmell has his 3 year old daughter Haley standing on the lower rung of the rail. She is leaned back against his beer barrel of a stomach, watching the seagulls.

The sketch captures them perfectly, with a great sense of the humanity of the moment. Spencer is good…really good. Aaron looks over Spencer's shoulder.

"How did you get so good, Spencer?"

"Well before my parents died when I was fifteen they got me this sketchbook. I've had it for five years. Paper is dirt cheap so I could always get the supplies but this leather binding is very special to me."

"That's nice. I wonder what America is like. All I've seen was London and White Chapel and well its filled with poverty. I'm happy my mother never had to be a prostitute to keep us fed especially with that Jack the Ripper murdering people when I was a little boy."

Declan Anderson, a scowling young Irish emigrant, watches as a crewmember comes by, walking three small dogs around the deck.

"That's typical. First class dogs come down here to take a shit."

Spencer looks up from his sketch.

"That's so we know where we rank in the scheme of things."

"Like we could forget."

Spencer glances across the well deck. At the aft railing of B deck promenade stands Jennifer, in a long yellow dress and white gloves. He is unable to take his eyes off of her. They are across from each other, about 60 feet apart, with the well deck like a valley between them. She's on her promontory, he on his lower one. She stares down at the water.

He watches her unpin her elaborate hat and take it off. She looks at the frilly absurd thing, then tosses it over the rail. It sails far down to the water and is carried away, astern. A spot of yellow in the vast ocean. He is riveted by her. She looks like a figure in a romantic novel, sad and isolated.

Aaron taps Declan and they both look at Spencer gazing at Jennifer. They grin at each other.

Jennifer turns suddenly and looks right at Spencer. He is caught staring, but he doesn't look away. She does, but then looks back. Their eyes meet across the space of the well deck, across the gulf between worlds.

Spencer sees Will come up behind her and takes her arm. She jerks her arm away. They argue in pantomime. She storms away and he goes after her, disappearing along the A-deck promenade. Spencer stares after her.

"Forget it, boyo. You'd as like have angel fly out o' yer arse as get next to the likes o' her."


	6. 5

1912

In the First Class Dining Saloon. Jennifer is sitting, flanked by people in heated conversation. Will and Erin are laughing together, while on the other side Lady Duff-Gordon is holding forth animatedly. We don't hear what they are saying.

"_I saw my life as I'd already lived it…an endless parade of parties and cotillions, yachts and polo matches…always the same narrow people, the same mindless chatter. I felt like I was standing at a great precipice, with no one to pull me back, no one who cared…or even noticed."_

Beneath the table Jennifer is holding a tiny fork from her crab salad. She pokes the crab fork into the skin of her arm, harder and harder until it draws blood.

Jennifer walks along the corridor. A steward coming the other way greets her, and she nods with a slight smile. She is perfectly composed.

She enters her bedroom.

"Penelope."

She calls for her but doesn't come in. She needs to get her evening clothes off. She stands in the middle, staring at her reflection in the large vanity mirror. Just stands there, then…

With a primal, anguished cry she claws at her throat, ripping off her pearl necklace, which explodes across the room. In a frenzy she tears at herself, her clothes and her hair. Then she attacks the room. She flings everything off the dresser and it flies clattering against the wall. She hurls a hand mirror against the vanity, cracking it.

Jennifer runs along the B deck promenade. She is disheveled, her hair flying. She is crying, her cheeks streaked with tears. But also angry, furious! Shaking with emotions she doesn't understand…hatred, self-hatred, desperation. A strolling couple watch her pass. Shocked at her emotional display in public.

Spencer is kicked back on one of the benches gazing at the stars blazing gloriously overhead. Thinking artist thoughts and smoking a cigarette.

Hearing something, he turns as Jennifer runs up the stairs from the well deck. There are only two on the stern deck, except for Quartermaster Rowe, twenty feet above them on the docking bridge catwalk. She doesn't see Spencer in the shadows, and runs right past him.

She runs across the deserted fantail. Her breath hitches in an occasional sob, which she suppresses. Jennifer slams against the base of the stern flagpole and clings there, panting. She stares out at the black water. She starts to climb over the railing. She has to hitch her long dress way up and climbing is clumsy. Moving methodically she turns her body and gets her heels on the white-painted gunwale, her back to the railing, facing out toward blackness. 60 feet below her, the massive propellers are churning the atlantic into white foam, and a ghostly wake trails off toward the horizon. Jennifer stands like a figurehead in reverse. Below her are the huge letters of the name Titanic. She leans out her arms straightening…looking down hypnotized, into the vortex below her. Her dress and hair are lifted by the wind of the ship's movement. The only sound above the rush of water below, is the flutter and snap of the big Union Jack right above her.

"Don't do it."

She whips her head around at the sound of his voice. It takes a second for her eyes to focus.

"Stay back! Don't come any closer!

Spencer sees the tear tracks on her cheeks in the faint glow from the stern running lights.

"Come on, just give me your hand. I'll pull you back over."

"No! Stay where you are! I mean it! I'll let go!"

Spencer approaches slowly, gesturing to his cigarette to show that he is approaching merely to throw it over the side into the ocean.

"No, you won't"

"What do you mean no I won't? Don't presume to tell me what I will and will not do. You don't know me."

"You would have done it already."

Jennifer is confused now. She can't see him very well through the tears, so she wipes them with one hand, almost losing her balance.

"You're distracting me. Go away."

"I can't. I'm involved now. You let go, and I'm, I'm gonna have to jump in there after you."

"Don't be absurd. You'll be killed."

He takes off his jacket.

"I'm a good swimmer."

He starts unlacing his left shoe.

"The fall alone would kill you."  
"It would hurt. I'm not saying it wouldn't. To be honest I'm a lot more considered about that water being so cold."

She looks down. The reality factor of what she is doing is sinking it.

"How cold?"

He takes off his left shoe.

"Freezing. Maybe a couple degrees over. Ever been to Wisconsin?"

He starts unlacing his right shoe.

"What?"

"Well, they have some of the coldest winters around. I grew up there, near Madison. I remember when I was kid, me and my father, we went ice fishing out on Lake Monona. Ice fishing is, you know, where you…"

She starts to get annoyed.

"I know what ice fishing is!"

"Sorry. You just seem like, you know, kind of an indoor girl. Anyway, I, uh, I fell through some thin ice; and I'm telling you, water that cold like right down there…"

He gestures with his chin down towards the Atlantic Ocean.

"…it hits you like a thousand knives stabbing you all over your body. You can't breathe. You can't think. At least, not about anything but the pain."

He takes off his other shoe.

"Which is why I'm not looking forward to jumping in there after you. Like I said, I don't have a choice. I guess I'm kinda hoping you'll come back over the railing, an' get me off the hook here."

"You're crazy."

"That's what everybody says. But with all due respect miss, I'm not the one hanging off the back of a ship here. Come on. C'mon, give me your hand. You don't want to do this."

She reaches her hand back, he reaches his forward.

"Whew! I'm Spencer Reid."

"Jennifer Strauss Jareau."

"I'm gonna have to get you to write that one down."

She laughs and as she shifts her footing and starts to climb, her dress gets in the way, and one foot slips off the edge of the deck. She plunges, letting out a piercing shriek. Spencer gripping her hand, is jerked towards the rail.

Quartermaster Rowe, up on the docking bridge hears the scream and heads for the letter.

"HELP! HELP!"

"I've got you. I won't let go."

Spencer holds her hand with all his strength, bracing himself on the railing with his other hand. Jennifer tries to lift her bodily over the railing. She can't get any footing in, her dress and evening shoes, and she slips back. She screams again.

Spencer awkwardly clutching Jennifer by whatever he can get a grip on as she flails, gets her over the railing. They fall together onto the deck in a tangled heap, spinning in such a way that Spencer winds up slightly on top of her.

Rowe slides down the ladder from the docking bridge like it's a fire drill and sprints across the fantail.

"Hey, what's all this?"

Rowe runs up and pulls Spencer off of Jennifer, revealing her dishelved and sobbing on the deck. Her dress in torn, and the hem is pushing up above her knees, showing one ripped stocking. He looks at Spencer, the shaggy steerage man with his jacket off, and the first class lady clearly in distress, and starts jumping to conclusions. Two seamen chug across the deck to join them.

"Hey you, Stand back! Don't move an inch!"

He tells Spencer and turns to the seamen.

"Fetch the Master at Arms."

"


	7. 6

1912

A minutes later. Spencer is being detained by the burly Master at Arms, the closest thing to a cop on board. He is handcuffing Spencer. Will is right in front of him, and furious. He has obviously just rushed out here with Foyet and another man, and none of them have coats over their black tie evening dress. The other man is Colonel Archibald Gracie, a mustachioed blowhard who still has his brandy snifter. He offers it to Jennifer, who is hunched over crying on a bench nearby, but she waves it away. Will is more with Spencer. He grabs him by the lapels.

"What made you think you could put your hands on my fiancee? Look at me, you filth! What did you think you were doing?"

"Will, stop! It was an accident."

"An accident?"

"It was…stupid really. I was leaning over and I slipped."

Jennifer looks at Spencer, getting eye contact.

"I was leaning way over, to see the…um…ah…"

Jennifer pretends to be dumb and makes her finger do the propeller shape.

"Propellers."

"Propellers. And I slipped and I would have gone overboard…and Mr. Reid here saved me and he almost went over himself."

"You wanted to see the propellers?"

"Women and machinery do not mix."

Gracie says shaking his head.

"Was that the the way of it?"

The Master at Arms asks Spencer.

Jennifer is begging him with her eyes not to say what really happened.

"Uh huh. That was pretty much it."

He looks at Jennifer a moment longer. Now they have a secret together.

"Well! The boy's a hero then. Good for you son, well done!"

Gracie says and then turns to Will.

"So it's all well and back to our brandy, eh?"

Spencer is uncuffed. Will gets Jennifer to her feet and moving.

"Let's get you in. You're freezing."

Will rubs her arms and turns to leave without a second thought for Spencer.

"Ah…perhaps a little something for the boy?"

Gracie asks Will.

"Oh, right. Mr. Foyet. A twenty should do it."

"Is that the going rate for saving the woman you love?"

"Rose is displeased. Mmm…what to do?"

Will turns to Spencer. He appraises him condescendingly…a steerage ruffian, unwashed and ill-mannered.

"I know. Perhaps you could join us for dinner tomorrow evening, to regale our group with your heroic tale?"

"Sure. Count me in."

He looks straight at Jennifer.

"Good. Settled then."

Will turns to go, putting a protective arm around Jennifer. He leans closer to Gracie as they walk away.

"This should be interesting."

"Can I bum a smoke?"

Spencer asks as Foyet passes.

Foyet smoothly draws a silver cigarette case from his jacket and snaps it open. Spencer takes a cigarette, then another, popping it behind his ear for later. Foyet lights Spencer's cigarette.

"You'll want to tie those."

Spencer looks at his shoes.

"Interesting that the young lady slipped so suddenly and you still had time to remove your jacket and your shoes."

Foyet's expression is bland, but the eyes are cold. He turns away to join his group.

As Jennifer gets ready for bed she sees Will standing in her doorway, reflected in the cracked mirror of her vanity. He comes towards her.

"I know you've been melancholy, and I don't pretend to know why."

From behind his back he hands her a large black velvet jewel case. She takes it, numbly.

"I intended to save this till the engagement gala next week. But I thought tonight…perhaps a reminder of my feelings for you…"

Jennifer slowly opens the box. Inside is the necklace in all it's glory. It is hug…a malevolent blue stone glittering with an infinity of scalpel-like inner reflections.

"Is it a…"

"Diamond. Yes it is. 56 carats to be exact."

He takes the necklace and during the following places it around her throat. He turns her to the mirror, staring behind her.

"It was once worn by Louis the Sixteenth. They call it Le Coeur de la Mer, the…"

"The Heart of the Ocean. It's…it's overwhelming."

He gazes at the image of the two of them in the mirror.

"It's for royalty…and _we _are royalty, Jennifer."

His fingers caress her neck and throat. He seems himself to be disarmed by Jennifer's elegance and beauty. His emotion is, for the first time, unguarded.

"There's nothing I couldn't give you. There's nothing I'd deny you if you would deny me. Open your heart to me, Jennifer."

Jennifer puts her fingers around the necklace.

1996

"Of course his gift was only to reflect light back onto himself, to illuminate the greatness that was William LaMontagne, Jr. It was a cold stone…a heart of ice. After all these years, I still feel it closing around my throat like a dog collar. I can still feel its weight. If you could have felt it, not just seen it…"

"Well, that's the general idea, my dear."

Dave tells her with a smile.

"So let me get this straight. You were gonna kill yourself by jumping off the Titanic? That's great!"

Kevin guffaws.

"Kevin…"

Dave tells him warningly. But Jennifer laughs with Kevin.

"All you had to do was wait two days!"

Kevin says still laughing.

Dave, standing out of Jennifer's sightline, checks his watch. Hours have passed. This process is talking too long.

"Jennifer, tell us more about the diamond. What did LaMontagne do with it after that?"

"I'm afraid I'm feeling a little tired, Mr. Rossi."

Ashley picks up the cue and starts to wheel her out.

"Wait! Can you give us something to go on, here. Like who had access to the safe? What about this Foyet guy? The valet. Did he have the combination?"

"That's enough."

Ashley takes her out. Jennifer's old hand reappears at the doorway in a frail wave goodbye.

As the big hydraulic jib swings one of the Mir subs out over the water. Dave walks as he talks with Derek. They weave around deck cranes, launch crew, sub maintenance guys.

"The partners are pissed."

Derek tells him flatly.

"Derek, buy me time. I need time."

"We're running thirty thousand a day, and we're six days over. I'm telling you what they're telling me. The hand is on the plug. It's starting to pull."

"Well you tell the hand I need another two days! Derek, Derek, Derek…we're close! I smell it. I smell ice. She had the diamond on…now we just have to find out where it wound up. I just gotta work her a bit more. Okay?"

Dave turns and sees Ashley standing behind him. She has overheard the last part of his conversation with Derek. He goes to her and hustles her away from Derek, towards a quiet spot on the deck.

"Hey, Ashley. I need to talk to you for a second."

"Don't you mean work me?"

"Look, I'm running out of time. I need your help."

"I'm not going to help you browbeat my hundred and one year old grandmother. I came down here to tell you to back off."

"Ashley…you gotta understand something. I've bet it all to find the Heart of the Ocean. I've got all my dough tied up in this thing. My third wife even divorced me over this hunt. I need what's locked inside your grandma's memory."

He tells her with desperation and he holds out his hand.

"You see this? Right here?"

She looks at his hand, palm up. Empty. Cupped, as if around an imaginary shape.

"What?"

"That's the shape my hand's gonna be when I hold that thing. You understand? I'm not leaving her without it."

"Look, David, she's going to do this her way, in her own time. Don't forget, she contacted you. She's out here for her own reasons, God knows what they are."

"Maybe she wants to make peace with the past."

"What past? She has never once, not once, ever said a word about being on the Titanic until two days ago."

"Then we're all meeting your grandmother for the first time."

"You think she was really there?"

"Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm a believer. She was there."

The next morning Kevin starts the tape recorder. Jennifer is gazing at the screen seeing the live feed from the wreck.

"The next day, Saturday, I remember thinking how the sunlight felt."


	8. 7

1912

Jennifer walks into the sunlight right in front us. She is stunningly dressed and walking with purpose.

"_As if I hadn't felt the sun in years."_

It is Saturday April 13, 1912. Jennifer unlatches the gate to go down into third class. The steerage men on the deck stop what they're doing and stare at her.

Jennifer is heading to the third class general room. The social center of steerage life. It is stark comparison to the opulence of first class, but a loud, boisterous place. There are mothers with babies, kids running between the benches yelling in several languages and being scolded in several more. There are old women yelling, men playing chess, girls doing needle point and reading dime novels. There is even an upright piano and Declan Anderson is noddling around it.

Three boys, shrieking and shouting, are scrambling around chasing a rat under the benches, trying to whomp it with a shoe and causing general havoc. Spencer is playing with Haley Cartmell, drawing funny faces together in his sketchbook.

Aaron is struggling to get a conversation going with an attractive Norwegian girl, Emily Prentiss, sitting with her family at a table across the room.

"No English?"

"No, no. Norwegian only."

Emily's eye is caught by something. Aaron looks, does a take…and Spencer, is curious, follows their gaze to see…

Jennifer coming towards them. The activity room stops…a hush falls. Jennifer feels suddenly self-conscious as the steerage passengers stare openly at this princess, some with resentment, others with awe. She spots Spencer and gives a little smile, walking straight to him. He rises to meet her, smiling.

"Hello Spencer."

Aaron and Anderson are floor. It's like the slipper fitting Cinderella.

"Hello Jennifer. It's nice to see you again."

"Can I speak to you in private?"

"Uh, yes. Of course…after you."

He motions her ahead and follows. Spencer glances over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised, as he walks out with her leaving a stunned silence. Aaron and Anderson look at one another and laugh.

Jennifer and Spencer are walking on the boat deck and Jennifer turns to him.

"Mr. Reid, I…"

"Spencer."

"Spencer…I wanted to thank you for what you did. Not just for…for pulling me back. But at your discretion

"You're welcome."

"Look, I know what you must be thinking! Poor little rich girl. What does she know about misery?"

"That's not what I was thinking. What I was thinking was…what could have happened to hurt this girl so much she thought she had no way out."

"It was…it was everything. It was my whole world and everybody in it and the inertia of my life. And I can't stop it."

She shows him her engagement ring. A sizable diamond.

"God look at that thing! You would have gone straight to the bottom."

"500 invitations have gone out…all of Philadelphia society will be there. I feel like I'm in a crowded room, screaming at the top my lungs and no one looks up."

"Do you love him?"

"Pardon me?"

"Do you love him?"

"Well, you're being very rude. You shouldn't be asking me this.

"Well, it's a simple question. Do you love the guy or not?"

"This is not a suitable conversation."

"Why can't you just answer the question?"

He asks with a chuckle and Jennifer laughs nervously.

"This is absurd. I don't know you and you don't know me and we are not having this conversation at all. You are rude and uncouth, and presumptuous, and I am leaving now."

She starts shaking his hand.

"Spencer…Mister Reid, it's been a pleasure. I've sought you out to thank you, and now I have thanked you, and now I have thanked you."

"And even insulted me."

"Well, you deserved it."

"Right."

"Right."

Jennifer is still shaking his hand.

"I thought you were leaving."

"I am. You are so annoying."

She turns to leave.

"Ha, ha."

He laughs and she turns back to look at Spencer.

"Wait, I don't have to leave, this is my part of the ship. You leave."

"Oh ho, ho, well, well, well, now who's being rude?"

She scoffs and see his sketchbook and she grabs it.

"What's this. Are you an artist or something?"

She asks and he just looks at her. She flips through the sketches and smiles.

"These are very good… their very good actually."

She says as she takes a seat in the chair and he sits right by her.

"Spencer this is exquisite work."

"Well they didn't think much of them in old Paree."

"Paris. You do get around for a poor…um a man of limited means."

"A poor guy you can say it."

She turns a pages and sees a series of nudes. Jennifer is transfixed by the languid beauty he had created. His nudes are soulful, real, with expressive hands and eyes. They feel more like portraits than studies of the human form…almost uncomfortably intimate. Jennifer blushes, raising the book as some first class gentlemen walk by.

"And these were drawn from life?"

"Yup. That's one of the great things about Paris. Lots of girls willing to take their clothes off."

She studies one drawing in particular, the girl posed half in sunlight, half in shadow. Her hands lie at her chin, one furled and one open like a flower, languid and graceful.

"You liked this woman. You used her several times."

"She had beautiful hands you see."

He shows Jennifer the woman's hands and she smiles.

"I think you must have had a love affair with her…"

"No, no! Just with her hands. She was a one legged prostitute."

Jennifer looks at the drawing, gasps and laughs awkwardly and turns the page.

"Oh this woman. She would sit in this bar everynight. Wearing everything she owned waiting for her lost love. I called her Madame Bijou. See her clothes are all moth eaten."

She looks in his eyes.

"You have a gift, Spencer. You do. You see people."

"I see you."

There it is. That piercing gaze again.

"And?"

"You wouldn't have jumped."

Erin is having tea with Noel Lucy Martha Dyer-Edwardes, the Countess of Rothes. In the Reception Room on D Deck. Erin sees someone coming across the room and lowers her voice.

"Oh no, that vulgar Brown woman is coming this way. Get up, quickly before she sits with us."

Molly Brown walks up, greeting them cheerfully as they are rising.

"Hello girls, I was hoping I'd catch you at tea."

"We're awfully sorry you missed it. The Countess and I are just off to take the air on the boat deck.

"That sounds great. Let's go. I need to catch up on the gossip."

Erin grits her teeth as the three of them head for the Grand Staircase to go up. Bruce Ismay and Captain Smith sit at another table.

"So you've not lit the last four boilers then?"

"No, but we're making excellent time."

"Captain, the press knows the size of Titanic, let them marvel at her speed. We must give them something new to print. And the maiden voyage of Titanic must make headlines!"

Ismay tells him impatiently.

"I prefer not to push the engines until they've been properly run in."

"Of course I'll leave it to your good offices to decide what's best, but what a glorious end to your last crossing if we get into New York Tuesday night and surprise them all. Retire with a bang, eh, E.J."

Smith nods, stiffly.

"Good man."

Jennifer and Spencer stroll aft, past people lounging on deck chairs in the slanting late-afternoon light. Stewards scurry to serve tea or hot cocoa.

"You know, my dream has always been to just chuck it all and become an artist…living in a garret, poor but free!"

"You wouldn't last two days. There's no hot water, and hardly ever any caviar."

Spencer said jokingly.

"I happen to hate caviar! And I'm tired of people telling me what I can and cannot do!"

Jennifer tells him angrily.

"I'm sorry you're right."

"Well, alright. There's something in me, Spencer. I feel it. I don't know what it is, whether I should be an artist, or, I don't know…a dancer. Like Isadora Duncan…a wild pagan spirit.."

She leaps forward, lands deftly and whirls like a dervish. Then she sees something ahead and her face lights up.

"…or a moving picture actress!"

She takes his hand and runs, pulling him along the deck toward Daniel and Mary Marvin. Daniel is cranking the big wooden movie camera as she poses stiffly at the rail.

"You're sad. Sad, sad, sad. You've left your lover on the shore. You may never see him again. Try to be sadder, darling."

Suddenly Jennifer shoots into the shot and strikes a theatrical pose at the rail next to Mary. Mary burst out laughing. Jennifer pulls Spencer into the picture and makes him pose.

Jennifer is posing tragically at the rail, the back of her hand to her forehead.

Spencer is on a deck chair, pretending to be a Pasha, the two girls pantomiming fanning him like slave girls.

Spencer, on his knees, pleading with his hands clasped while Jennifer, standing, turns her head in bored disdain.

Jennifer is cranking the camera, while Daniel and Spencer have a western shoot-out. Spencer wins and leers into the lens, twirling an air mustache like Snidely Whiplash.

At sunset they lean on the A-deck rail aft, shoulder to shoulder.

"So then what, Mr. Wandering Spencer?"

"Well, then logging got to be too much like work, so I went down to Los Angeles to the pier in Santa Monica. I sketched portraits there for ten cents apiece."

"Why can I be like you Spencer? Just head out for the horizon whenever I feel like it. Say we'll go there, sometime…to that pier…even if we only ever just talk about it."

"Alright, we'll do. We'll drink cheap beer and go one the rollercoaster until we throw up…"

Jennifer laughs.

"…and we'll ride horses on the beach…right in the surf…but you have to ride like a cowboy, none of that side-saddled stuff."

"You mean one leg on each side? Can you show me?"

"Sure. If you like."

"Teach me to ride like a man."

"Chew tobacco like a man."

"And…spit like a man."

"They didn't show you that in finishing school?"

"No."

"Come on. I'll show you."

Spencer grabs her hand.

"Spencer no."

"Come on."

"No Spencer. I couldn't possibly Spencer."

"Here it's easy. Watch closely."

He spits. It arcs out over the water.

"Your turn."

Jennifer screws up her mouth and spits. A pathetic little bit of foamy spittle which mostly runs down her chin before falling off into the water.

"Nope, that was pitiful. Here, like this…you hawk it down…HHHNNNK!...then roll it on your tongue, up to the front, like thith, then a big breath and PLOOW! You see the range on that thing?"

She nods and goes through the steps. Hawks it down, etc. He coaches her through it while doing the steps himself. She lets fly. So does he. Two comets of gob fly out over the water.

"That was great!"

Jennifer turns to him, her face alight. Suddenly she blanches. He sees her expression and turns. Erin, the countess of Rothes, and Molly Brown have been watching them hawking lugees. Jennifer becomes instantly composed.

"Mother…may I introduce Spencer Reid."

"Charmed, I'm sure."

Spencer has a little spit running down his chin. He doesn't know it. Molly brown is grinning. As Jennifer proceeds with the introductions.

"_The others were gracious and curious about the man who'd saved my life. But my mother looked at him like an insect. A dangerous insect which must be squashed quickly."_

"Well, Spencer, it sounds like you're a good man to have around in a sticky spot…"

They all jump as a bugler sounds the meal call right behind them.

"…why do they insist on always announcing dinner like a damn cavalry charge?"

Molly asks the group.

"Shall we go dress, mother? See you at dinner, Spencer."

"Jennifer, look at you…out in the sun with no hat. Honestly!"

Erin tells her daughter as they walk away with the Countess.

"Son…son! Do you have the slightest comprehension of what you're doing?"

"Not really."

"Well, you're about to go into the snake pit. I hope you're ready. What are you planning to wear?"

Spencer looks down at his clothes. Back up at her. He hasn't thought about that.

"I figured. Come on."

Molly takes his arm and leads him away.


	9. 8

1912

"I was right. You and my son are about the same size."

Molly says as Spencer put on the tuxedo.

"You shine up like a new penny."

Molly says as Spencer smiles in the mirror and laughs.

Spencer is on the boat deck and at the first class enterance. A steward bows and smartly opens the door to the First Class Entrance.

"Good evening, sir."

Spencer plays the role smoothly. Nods with just the right degree of disdain.

Spencer steps in and his breath is taken away by the splendor spread out before him. Overhead is the enormous glass dome, with a crystal chandelier at its center. Six stories down is the First Class Grand Staircase, the epitome of the opulent naval architecture of the time.

And the people in the room. Women in their floor length dresses, elaborate hair styles and abundant jewelry…the gentlemen in evening dresses, standing with one hand at the small of the back, talking quietly.

Spencer descends to A Deck. Several men nod a perfunctory greeting. He nods back, keeping it simple. He feels like a spy.

Will comes down the stairs, with Erin on his arm, covered in jewelry. They both walk right past Spencer, neither one recognizing him. Will nods at him, one gent to another. But Spencer barely has time to be amused. Because just behind Will and Erin on the stairs is Jennifer, a vision in red and black, her low-cut dress showing off her neck and shoulders, her arms seathed in white gloves that come well above her elbows. Spencer is hypnotized by her beauty.

Jennifer approaches Spencer. He imitates the gentlemen's stance, hand behind his back. She extends her gloved hand and he takes it, kissing the back of her fingers. Jennifer flushes, beaming noticably. She can't take her eyes off him.

"I saw that in a Nickelodeon once, and I always wanted to do it."

Jennifer smiles as Spencer offer her his arm. She gladly takes it. Spencer jokingly puts his nose in the air and Jennifer laughs. They walk over to Will and Erin.

"Darling? Surely you remember Mr. Reid."

"Reid! I didn't recognize you. Amazing! You could almost pass for a gentlemen."

He says as he studies him.

"Almost."

Spencer agrees sarcastically as Will and Erin turn to leave.

Will and Erin walk into the D-Deck Reception Room and Spencer and Jennifer are behind them.

As they enter the swirling throng, Jennifer leans close to him, pointing out several notables.

"There's the Countess of Rothes. And that's John Jacob Astor…the richest man on the ship. His little wifey there, Madeline, is my age and in a delicate condition. She how she's trying to hide it. Quite the scandal."

She nods towards another couple.

"And over there, that's Sir Cosmo and Lucile, Lady Duff-Gordon. She designs naughty lingerie, among her many talents. Very popular with the royals."

Will becomes engrossed in a conversation with Cosmo Duff-Gordon and Colonel Gracie, while Erin, the Coutess and Lucille discuss fashion. Jennifer picots Spencer smoothly, to show him another couple, dressed impeccably.

"And that's Benjamin Guggenheim and his mistress, Madame Aubert. Mrs. Guggenheim is at home with the children of course."

Will, meanwhile, is accepting the praise of his male counterparts, who are looking at Jennifer like a prize show horse.

"LaMontagne, she is splendid."

"Well thank you."

Molly sneaks up by Spencer.

"Care to escort a lady?"

"Certainly."

Spencer offers his other arm for her to take. They walk towards Astor and Madeleine.

"Hey Astor."

"Oh hello Molly."

"J.J. Madeleine. I'd love to introduce Spencer Reid."

"Good to meet you Spencer. Are you of the Las Vegas Reids?"

"No, the Madison Reids, actually."

J.J. nods as if he's heard of them, then looks puzzled. Madeleine Astor apraises Spencer and whispers girlishly to Jennifer.

"It's a pity we're both spoken for, isn't it?"

Astor and Madeleine walk into the dining saloon and Spencer, Jennifer and Molly follow them.

"Ain't nothin' to it, is there, Spencer?"

"Yeah, you just dress like a pallbearer and keep your nose up."

"Remember, the only thing they respect is money, so just act like you've got a gold mind and you're in the club."

In the dining saloon it is like a ballroom at a palace, alive and lit by a constellation of chandeliers, full of elegantly dressed people and beautiful music from Bandleader Wallace Hartley's small orchastra. As Jennifer and Spencer enter and more across the room to their table.

"_He must have been nervous but he never faltered. They assumed he was one of them…an heir to a railroad fortune, perhaps…new money, obviously, but still a member of the club. Mother of course, could always be counted upon…"_

"Tell us of the accommodations in steerage, Mr. Reid. I hear they're quite good on this ship."

Spencer is seating right by Molly and Thomas Andrews. Jennifer is sitting by Thomas and Will. Erin is sitting by Will.

"The best I've seem ma'am. Hardly any rats."

Everyone laughs politely.

"Mr. Reid is joining us from third class. He was of some assistance to my fiancee last night."

Will looks at Spencer and talks to him like a child.

"This is foie gras. It's goose liver."

Spencer sees everyone whisper and he becomes the subject of furtive glances. Now they're all feeling terribly liberal and dangerous.

"What is LaMontagne hoping to prove, bringing this…bohemian…up here?"

Guggenheim whispers to Madame Aubert.

Jennifer notices that Thomas Andrews is writing in his notebook, completely ignoring the whispers and looks of disdain from the other people at the table.

"Mr. Andrews, what are you doing? I see you everywhere writing in this little book."

She grabs it and reads.

"Increase number of screws in hat hooks from 2 to 3. You build the biggest ship in the world and this preoccupies you?"

Andrews smiles, sheepishly.

"He knows every rivet in her, don't you Thomas?"

Ismay asks him.

"All three million of them."

"His blood and sould are in the ship. She may be mine on paper, but in the eyes of God she belongs to Thomas Andrews."

"Your ship is a wonder, Mr. Andrews. Truly."

"Thank you, Jennifer."

The waiter is making his way to Spencer. He looks at all the eating utensils confused and whispers to Molly.

"Are these all for me?"

"Just start at the ends and work your way in."

"How do you take your caviar, sir?"

"Just a soupcon of lemon…it improves the flavor with champagne."

Will answers for him.

"No caviar for me, thanks."

He looks at Will.

"Never did like it much."

He looks at Jennifer, pokerfaced, and she smiles.

"And where exactly do you live, Mr. Reid?"

Erin asks him hoping to humilate him.

"Well, right now my address is the RMS Titanic. After that, I'm on God's good humor."

"You find that sort of rootless existence appealing, do you?"

Molly looks at Erin with an angry expression.

"Well, yes, ma'am, I do…I mean, I got everything I need right here with me. I got air in my lungs, a few blank sheets of paper. I mean, I love wakin' up in the morning not knowing what's gonna happen or, who I'm gonna meet, where I'm gonna wind up. Just the other night I was sleepin' under a bridge and now here I am on the grandest ship in the world having champagne with you fine people."

He turns to the waiter.

"I'll have some of that. I figure life's a gift and I don't intend on wasting it. You don't know what hand you're gonna get dealt next. You learn to take life as it comes at you…"

Will needs to light a cigarette.

"Here you go Will."

Spencer throws him a lighter.

"To make each day count."

Molly Brown raises her glass in a salute.

"Well said Spencer."

Colonel Gracie raises his glass.

"Here, here."

Jennifer raises her glass, looking at Spencer.

"To making it count."

"To making it count." Everyone says saluting him.

Erin, annoyed that Spencer has scored a point, presses him further.

"How is it you have the mean to travel, Mr. Reid?"

"I work my way from place to place. Tramp steamers and such. I already had my ticket for the Titanic. But a few days ago we played poker with these two Swedish men and we had the tickets on the top of the stack. Aaron and I won the poker game."

He glances at Jennifer.

"I had a very lucky hand."

"All life is a game of luck."

Gracie says with pride.

"Real men make their own luck, Archie."

Later on while dessert is being served Molly is laughing while she tells a story.

"Mr. Brown put all the money in the stove. When I got home he was drunk as a pig and he lit a fire."

Everyone laughs cortly and Spencer puts a grape in his mouth. Jennifer moves to whisper to him.

"Next it'll be brandies in the Smoking Room."

Gracie rises from his chair.

"Well, join me for a brandy, gentlemen?"

"Now they'll retreat in a cloud of smoke and congratulate each other on being masters of the universe."

"Joining us, Reid? You don't want to stay out here with the women, do you?"

Actually Spencer wants to stay.

"No thanks. I'm heading back."

He whispers to Molly.

"Thank you Molly."

And gives her back her pen.

"Probably best. It'll be all business and politics, that sort of thing wouldn't interest you."

Will went to leave.

"Oh Reid. Good of you to come."

He throws the lighter back to him and Spencer catches it.

Spencer walks to Jennifer's seat to say goodbye.

"Spencer, must you go?"

"Time for me to row with the other slaves."

He leans over to take her hand and he slips a tiny folded note into her palm.

Erin, scowling, watches him walk away across the enormous room. Jennifer surreptitously opens the note below table level. It reads **Make it count. Meet me at the clock.**

Jennifer looks up and makes her decision.

Jennifer crosses the A-Deck foyer, seeing Spencer at the landing above. Spencer has his back to her, studying the ornate clock with its carved figures of Honor and Glory. It softly strikes the hour.

As she goes up the sweeping staircase towards him. He turns, sees her…and smiles.

"So…want to go to a real party?"

In the Third Class General Room. Everyone is alive with music, laughter and raucous carrying on. An ad hoc band is gathered near the upright piano, honking out lively stomping music on fiddle, accordian and tambourine. People of all ages are dancing, drinking beer and wine, smoking, laughing and even brawling.

Anderson hands Jennifer a pint of stout and she hoists it. Spencer is dancing with Haley Cartmell, or tries to, with her standing on his feet. As the tune ends Jennifer leans down to the little girl.

"May I cut in, miss?"

"You're still my best girl, Haley."

Haley scampers off. Jennifer and Spencer face each other. She is trembling as he takes her right hand in his left. His other hand slides to the small of her back. It is an electrifying moment.

"I don't know the steps."

She tells him awkwardly.

"Just move with me. Don't think."

The music starts and they are off. A little awkward at first, she starts to get into it. She grins at Spencer as she starts to get the rhythm of the steps.

"Wait…stop!"

She bends down, pulling off her high heeled shoes, and flings them to Anderson. Then she grabs Spencer and they plunge back into the fray, dancing faster as the music speeds up.

A table gets knocked over as a drunk crashes into it. And in the middle of it…Jennifer dancing with Spencer in her stocking feet. The steps are fast and she shines with sweat. A space opens around them, and people watch them, clapping as the band plays faster and faster.

Aaron and Emily are dancing. Dancing has obviated the need for a common language. He whirls her, then she responds by whirling him…Aaron's eyes go wide when he realizes she's stronger than he is.

The tune ends in a mad rush. Spencer steps away from Jennifer with a flourish, allowing her to take a bow. Exhilarated and slightly tipsy, she does a graceful ballet ployer, feet turned out perfectly. Everyone laughs and applauds. Spencer is a hit with the steerage folks, who've never had a lady party with them.

They move to a table, flushed and sweaty. Jennifer grabs Aaron's cigarette and takes a big drag. She's feeling cocky. Aaron is grinning, holding hands with Emily.

"How you two doin'?"

Spencer asks Aaron.

"I don't know what she's saying, she doesn't know what I'm saying, so we get along fine."

Anderon walks up with a pint for each of them. Jennifer chugs hers, showing off.

"You think a first class girl can't drink?"

Everybody else is dancing again, and Tony DiNozzo crashes into Anderson, who sloshes his beer over Jennifer's dress. She laughs, not caring. But Anderson lunges, grabbing Tony and wheeling him around.

"You stupid bastard!"

Tony comes around, his fists coming up…and Spencer leaps into the middle of it, pushing them apart.

"Boys, boys! Did I ever tell you the one about the Italian and the Irishman goin' to the whorehouse?"

Anderson stands there, all piss and vinegar, chest puffed up. Then he grins and claps Tony on the shoulder.

"So, you think you're big tough men? Let's see you do this."

In her stocking feet she assumes a ballet stance, arms raised, and goes up on point, taking her entire weight on the tip of her toes. The guys gape at her incredible muscle control. She comes back down, then her face screws up in pain. She grabs one foot, hopping around.

"Owww! I haven't done that in years."

Spencer catches her as she loses her balance, and everyone cracks up.

The door to the well deck is open a few inches as Foyet watches through the gap. He sees Spencer holding Jennifer, both of them laughing.

Foyet closes the door.

Spencer and Jennifer are walking on the boat deck. The stars blaze overhead, so bright and clear that they can see the Milky Way. Jennifer and Spencer walk along the row of lifeboats. Still giddy from the party, they are singing a popular song _Come Josephine in My Flying Machine._

"Come Josephine in my flying machine. And it's up she goes! Up she goes! In the air she goes. Where? There she goes!"

They fumble the words and break down laughing. They have reached the First Class Entrance, but don't go straight in, not wanting the evening to end. Through the doors the sound of the ship's orchastra wafts gently. Jennifer grabs a davit and leans back, staring at the cosmos.

"Isn't it magnificent? So grand and endless."

She goes to the rail and leans on it.

"They're such small people, Spencer…my crowd. They think they're giants on the earth, but they're not even dust in God's eye. They live inside this little tiny champagne bubble…and someday the bubble's going to burst.

He leans at the rail next to her, his hand just touching hers. It is the slightest contact imaginable, and all either one of them can feel is that square inch of skin where their hands are touching.

"You're not one of them. There's been a mistake."

"A mistake?"

"Uh huh…you got mailed to the wrong address."

"I did, didn't I?"

She laughed and then points suddenly.

"Look! A shooting star."

"That was a long one. My father used to say that whenever you saw one, it was a soul going to heaven."

"I like that. Aren't we supposed to wish on it?"

Spencer looks at her, and finds that they are suddenly very close together. It would be easy to move another couple of inches, to kiss her. Jennifer seems to be thinking the same thing.

"What would you wish for?"

Jennifer pulls back.

"Something I can't have."

She smiles sadly.

"Goodnight, Spencer. And thank you."

She leaves the rail and hurries through the First Class Entrance.

"Jennifer!"

But the door bangs shut, and she is gone. Back to her world.


	10. 9

1912

Sunday April 14, 1912. It is a bright clear day. Sunlight splashing across the promenade. Jennifer and Will are having breakfast in silence. The tension is palpable. Penelope Garcia, in her maid's uniform, pours the coffee and goes inside.

"I had hoped you would come to me last night."

"I was tired."

"Yes. Your exertions below decks were no doubt exhausting."

"I see you had that undertaker of a manservant follow me."

Jennifer told him stiffening.

"You will never behave like that again! Do you understand?"

"I'm not some foreman in your mills that you can command! I am your fiancee…"

Will explodes, sweeping the breakfast china off the table with a crash. He moves to her in one shocking moment, glowering over her and gripping the sides of her chair, so she is trapped between his arms.

"Yes! You are! And my wife…in practice, if not yet by law. So you will honor me, as a wife is required to honor her husband! I will not be made out a fool! Is this in any way unclear?"

Jennifer shrinks into the chair. She sees Penelope, frozen partway through the door bringing the orange juice. Will follows Jennifer's glance and straightens up. He stalks past the maid, entering the stateroom.

"We…had a little accident. I'm sorry, Penelope."

"It's okay Miss."

"No…let me help you."

She picks some of the broken glass.

"Miss."

Jennifer falls back and sobs.

After Penelope finish cleaning the broken things there are in Jennifer's bedroom putting on her corset. Erin walks into the room.

"Tea Penelope."

"I'll be back soon, ma'am."

Penelope walks out of the room and closes the door.

"You are not to see that boy again, do you understand me Jennifer? I forbid it!"

Erin is pulling, the corset strings with both hands.

"Oh, stop it, Mother. You'll give yourself a nosebleed."

Erin turns her around and Jennifer is looking at her mother.

"Jennifer, this is not a game! Our situation if precarious. You know the money's gone!"

"Of course I know it's gone. You remind me every day!"

"Your father left us nothing but a legacy of bad debts hidden by a good name. And that name is the only car we have to play. I don't understand you. It is a fine match with LaMontagne, and it will insure our survival."

"How can you put this on my shoulders?"

Jennifer asks hurt and lost.

"How can you be so selfish?"

"I'm being selfish?"

Erin turns away from her daughter with fear in her eyes and turns back to her daughter.

"Do you want to see me working as a seamstress? Is that what you want? Do you want to see our fine things sold at an auction, our memories scattered to the wind?"

"It's so unfair."

"Of course it's unfair! We're women. Our choices are never easy."

Erin pulls the corset tighter and Jennifer closes her eyes in defeat.

At the divine service in the First Class dining saloon. Captain Smith is leading a group in the hymn _Almighty Father Strong to Save._ Jennifer and Erin sing in the middle of the group.

Foyet stands well back, keeping an eye on Jennifer. He notices a commotion at the entry doors. Spencer has been halted there by two stewards. He is dressed in his third class clothes, and stands there looking out of place.

"Look, you, you're not supposed to be in here."

The steward tells him.

"I was just here last night…don't you remember me?"

Spencer sees Foyet coming towards him.

"He'll tell you."

"Mr. LaMontagne and Mrs. Strauss Jareau continue to be most appreciative of your assistance. They asked me to give you this in gratitude…"

He hold out two twenty dollar bills, which Spencer refuses to take.

"I don't want money, I…"

"…and also to remind you that you hold a third class ticket and your presence here is no longer appropriate."

Spencer spots Jennifer but she doesn't see him.

"I just need to talk to Jennifer for a…"

"Gentlemen, please see that Mr. Reid gets back where he belongs. And that he stays there."

Foyet gives the twenties to the stewards.

"Yes sir! Come along you."

The steward grabs Spencer and puts him back to third class.

"O hear us when we cry to thee for those in peril on the sea."

Jennifer sings.

Thomas Andrews is leading a small tour group, includiing Jennifer, Erin and Will. Will is working the oars of a stationary rowing machine with a well trained stroke.

"Reminds me of my Harvard days."

T.W. McCauley, the gym instructor hits a switch and a machine with a saddle on it starts to undulate. Jennifer puts her hand on it, curious.

"The electric horse is very popular. We even have an electric camel."

He tells Jennifer and then turns to Erin.

"Care to try your hand at the rowing, ma'am?"

"Don't be absurd. I can't think of a skill I should likely need less."

"The next stop on our tour will be the bridge. This way, please."

Andrews tells them and Jennifer punches the punch bag.

Spencer is walking with determination, is followed closely by Anderson and Aaron. He quickly climbs the steps to B Deck and steps over the gate separating 3rd from 2nd class.

"She's a goddess amongst mortal men, there's no denyin'. But she's in another world, Spencer, forget her. She's closed the door."

Anderson tells him.

Spencer moves furtively to the wall behind the A Deck promenade, aft.

"It was them, not her."

He glances around the deck.

"Ready…go."

Anderson shakes his head resignedly and puts his hands together, crouching down. Spencer steps into his hand and gets boosted up to the next deck, where he scrambles nimbly over the railing, onto the First Class deck.

"He's not bein' logical, I tell ya."

"Love is not logical, Anderson."

A man is playing with his son, who is spinning a top with a string. The man's overcoat and hat are sitting on a deck chair nearby. Spencer emerges from behind one of the huge deck cranes and calmly picks up the coat and bowler hat. He walks away, slipping into the coat, and slicks his hair back with spit. Then he puts the hat on at a jaunty angle. At a distance he could pass for a gentlemen.

Harold Bride, the 21 year old Junior Wireless Operator, hustles in and skirts around Andrews to hand a Marconigram to Captain Smith.

"Another ice warning, sir. This one from the Baltic."

"Thank you, Sparks."

Smith glances at the message then nonchalantly puts it in his pocket. He nods reassuringly to Jennifer and the group.

"Not to worry, it's quite normal for this time of year. In fact, we're speeding up. I've just ordered the last boilers lit.

Andrews scowls slightly before motioning the group towards the door. They exit just as Second Officer Charles Herbert Lightoller comes out of the chartroom, stopping next to First Officer Murdoch.

"Did we ever find those binoculars for the lookouts?"

Lightollers asks Murdoch.

"Haven't seen them since Southampton."

Andrews leads the group from the bridge along the boat deck on the starboard side.

"Mr. Andrews, I did the sum in my head, and with the number of lifeboats times the capacity you mentioned…forgive me, but it seems that there are not enough for everyone aboard."

Jennifer asks him.

"About half, actually. Jennifer, you miss nothing, do you? In fact, I put in these new type davits, which can take an extra row of boats here."

He gestures along the deck.

"But it was thought...by some…that the deck would look too cluttered. So I was over-ruled.

"Waste of deck space as it is, on an unsinkable ship!"

Will slaps the side of a boat.

"Sleep soundly, young Jennifer. I have built you a good ship, strong and true. She's all the lifeboat you need."

As they are passing Boat 7, a gentlemen turns from the rail and walks up behind the group. It is Spencer. He taps Jennifer on the arm and she turns, gasping. He motions and she cuts away from the group toward a door which Spencer holds open. They duck into the gymnasium. Spencer closed the door behind her, and glances out through the ripple-glass window to the starboard rail, where the gym instructor is chatting up the woman who was riding the bike. Jennifer and Spencer are alone in the room.

"Spencer, this is impossible. I can't see you."

He takes her by the shoulders.

"Jennifer, you're no picnic…you're a spoiled little brat even, but under that you're a strong, loving, and you're the most amazingly astounding girl…woman I've ever know and…"

"Spencer, I…"

"No wait. Let me try to get this out. You're amazing. I have ten bucks in my pocket and I know that I have nothing to offer you, Jennifer. I know that. But I'm too involved now. You jump, I jump, remember? I can't turn away without knowin' that you're goin' to be alright."

Jennifer feels the tears coming to her eyes. Spencer is so open and real…not like anyone she has ever known.

"You're making this very hard. I'll be fine. Really."

"I don't think so. They've got you trapped Jennifer in a glass jar like some butterfly, and you're goin' to die if you don't break out. Maybe not right away, 'cause you're strong. But sooner or later that fire I love about you Jennifer, that fire is goin' to burn out."

"It's not up to you to save me, Spencer."

"You're right. Only you can do that."

"I have to get back, they'll miss me. Please, Spencer, for both our sakes, leave me alone."

Jennifer is sitting on a divan, with a group of other women arrayed around her. Erin, the Countess of Rothes and Lady Duff-Gordon are taking tea. Jennifer is silent and still as a porcelain figurine as the conversation washes around her.

"Of course the invitations had to be sent back to the printers twice. And the bridemaids dresses! Let me tell you what an odyssey that has been…Jennifer decided on Lavender and she knows I dislike that color so she chose it to spite me."

Jennifer sees a mother and daughter having tea. The four year old girl, wearing white gloves, daintly picking up a cookie. The mother correcting her on her posture, and the way she holds the teacup. The little girl is trying so hard to please, her expression serious. Jennifer remember what she was like at that age. She remembers the relentless conditioning…the pain to becoming an Edwardian geisha.

"You know what they say it's like a phoenix rising from the ashes."

The Countess says and the group laughs politely.

Spencer is leaning right at the apex of the bow railing, his favorite spot. He closes his eyes, letting the chill wind clear his head.

"Hello, Spencer."

He turns and she is standing there.

"I changed my mind."

He smiles at her, his eyes drinking her in. Her cheeks are red with the chill wind, and her eyes sparkle. Her hair blows wildly about her face.

"Aaron said you might be up…"

"Ssshh. Come here."

He puts his hands on her waist. As if he is going to kiss her.

"Close your eyes."

She does, and he turns her to face forward, the way the ship is going. He presses her gently to the rail, standing right behind her. Then he takes her two hands and raises them until she is standing with her arms outstrectched on each side. Jennifer is going along with him. When he lowers his hands, her arms stay up…like wings.

"Open your eyes."

Jennifer gasps. There is nothing in her field of vision but water. It's like there is no ship under them at all, just the two of them soaring. The Atlantic unrolls towards her, a hammered copper shield under a dusk sky. There is only the wind and the hiss of the water 50 feet below.

"I'm flying!"

She leans forward, arching her back. He puts his hands on her waist to steady her.

"Come Josephine in my flying machine…up she goes…up she goes."

He sings softly.

Jennifer closes her eyes, feeling herself floating weightless far above the sea. She smiles dreamily, then leans back, gently pressing her back against his chest. He pushes forward slightly against her.

Slowly he raises his hands; arms outstretched, and they meet hers…fingertips, gently touching. Then their fingers intertwine. Moving slowly, their fingers caress through and around each other like the bodies of two lovers.

Spencer tips his face forward into her blowing hair, letting the scent of her wash over him, until his cheek is against her ear.

Jennifer turns her head until her lips are near his. She lowers her arms, turning further, until she finds his mouth with hers. He wraps his arms around her from behind, and they kiss like this with his head turned and tilted back, surrendering to him, to the emotion, to the inevitable. They kiss, slowly and tremulously, and then with building passion.

1996

"That was the last time Titanic ever saw daylight."

Dave changes the tape in the minicassette recorder.

"So we're up to dusk on the night of the sinking. Six hours to go."

"Don't you love it? There's Smith, he's standing there with the iceberg warning in his fucking hands…excuse me…in his hands and he's ordering more speed."

Kevin said with anger.

"26 years of experience working against him. He figures anything big enough to sink the ship they're going to see in time to turn. But the ship's too big, with too small a rudder…it can't corner worth shit. Everything he knows is wrong."

Jennifer is ignoring this conversation. She has the art-nouveau comb with the jade butterfly on the handle in her hands, turning it slowly. She is watching a monitor, which shows the ruins of Suite B-52/56.


	11. 10

1912

Spencer and Jennifer go into her suite. Like in a dream and satin upholstery. Spencer is overwhelmed by the opulence of the room. He set his sketchbook and drawing materials on the marble table.

"Will this light do? Don't artists need good light?"

"Zat is true. I am not used to working in such 'orreeble conditions."

He says in a bad French accent.

"Hey…Monet!"

He crouches next to the paintings stacked against the wall.

"Isn't he great…the use of color? I saw him once…through a hole in his garden fence in Giverny."

"I know he's extraordinary."

She goes into the adjourning walk-in wardrobe closet. He sees her go to the safe and start working the combination. He's fascinated.

"Will insists on luggin' this thing everywhere."

"Should we be expecting him anytime soon?"

"Not as long as the cigars and brandy hold out."

CLUNK! She unlocks the safe. Glancing up, she meets his eyes in the mirror behind the safe. She opens it and removes the necklace, then holds it out to Spencer who takes it nervously.

"What is it? A sapphire?"

"A diamond. A very rare diamond, called the Heart of the Ocean."

Spencer gazes at wealth beyond his comprehension.

"I want you to draw me like your French girl. Wearing this. Wearing _only _this."

He looks up at her surprised.

In her bedroom she draws it out of her. She shakes her head and her hair fall free around her shoulders.

In the sitting room Spencer is laying out his pencils like surgical tools. His sketchbook is open and ready. He looks up as she comes into the room, wearing a silk kimono.

"The last thing I need is another picture of me looking like a china doll. As a paying customer, I expect to get what I want."

She hands him a dime and steps back, parting the kimono. The blue stone lies on her creamy breast. Her heart is pounding as she slowly lowers the robe.

Spencer looks so stricken, it is almost comical. The kimono drops to the floor.

"On the bed…the couch."

Jennifer walks to the divan and lays there.

"Tell me when it looks right to you."

She poses on the divan.

"Uh…just bend your left leg a little and…and lower your head. Eyes to me. That's it."

Spencer starts to sketch. He drops his pencil and she stifles a laugh.

"I believe you are blushing. Mr. Big Artiste. I can't imagine Monsieur Monet blushing.

"He does landscapes."

Their eyes meet as he looks at her over the top edge of his sketchbook.

Despite his nervousness, he draws with sure strokes, and what emerges is the best thing he has ever done. Her pose is languid, her hands beautiful, and her eyes radiate her energy.

1996

"My heart was pounding the whole time. It was the most erotic moment of my life…up till then at least."

She looks at a semicircle of listeners staring in rapt, frozen silence. The story of Spencer and Jennifer has finally and completely grabbed them.

"What, uh…happened next?"

Kevin asked.

"You mean, did we do it?"

Jennifer asked with a smile.

1912

Spencer is signing the drawing, Jennifer wearing her kimono again, is leaning on his shoulder, watching.

"_Sorry to disappoint you Mr. Lynch."_

Jennifer gazes at the drawing. He has X-rayed her soul.

"Date it, Spencer. I want to always remember this night."

He does: 4/14/1912. Jennifer meanwhile scribbles a note on a piece of Titanic stationary. She accepts the drawing from him, and crosses to the safe in the wardrobe.

She puts the diamond back in the safe, placing the drawing and the note on top of it. Closes the door with a CLUNK!

In the First Class Smoking Room Foyet enters from the Palm Court through the revolving door and crosses the room towards Will. A fire is blazing in the marble fireplace, and the usual fatcats are playing cards, drinking and talking. Will sees Foyet and detaches from his group, coming to him.

"None of the stewards have seen her."

"This is absurd how can she hide on a ship? This is ridiculous, Foyet. Find her."

He said low but forceful.

Titanic glides across an unnatural sea, black and calm as a pool of oil. The ship lights are mirrored almost perfectly in the black water. The sky is brilliant with stars. A meteor traces a bright line across the heavens.

On the bridge, Captain Smiths peers out at the blackness ahead of the ship. Quartermaster Hitchins brings him a cup of hot tea with lemon. It steams in the bitter cold of the open bridge. Second Officer Lightoller is next to him, staring out at the sheet of black glass the Atlantic has become.

"I don't think I've ever seen such a flat calm in 24 years at sea."

Lightoller observes.

"Yes, like a mill pond. Not a breath of wind."

"It makes the bergs harder to see, with no breaking water at the base."

"Mmmmm. Well, I'm off. Maintain speed and heading, Mr. Lightoller."

"Yes sir."

"And wake me, of course, if anything becomes in the slightest degree doubtful."

Jennifer, fully dressed now, returns to the sitting room. They hear a key in the lock. Jennifer takes Spencer's hand and leads him silently through the bedrooms. Foyet enters by the sitting room door.

"Miss Jennifer? Hello?"

He hears a door opening and goes through Will's room towards hers.

Jennifer and Spencer come out of her stateroom, closing the door. She leads him quickly along the corridor towards the B-Deck foyer. They are halfway across the open space when the sitting room door opens in the corridor and Foyet comes out. The valet sees Spencer with Jennifer and hustles after them.

"Come on!"

She and Spencer break into a run, surprising the few ladies and gentlemen about. Jennifer leads him past the stairs to the bank of elevators. They run into one, shocking the hell out of the Operator.

"Take us down. Quickly, quickly!"

The Operator scrambles to comply. Spencer even helps him close the steel gate.

Foyet runs up as the lift starts to descend. He slams one hand on the bars of the. Jennifer gives him the middle finger.

"Bye."

She waves and Spencer and her laugh as Foyet disappears above. The Operator gapes at her.

On the E-Deck Foyer Foyet emerges from another lift and runs to the one Spencer and Jennifer were in. The Operator is just closing the gate to go back up. Foyet runs around the bank of elevators and scans the foyer…no Spencer and Jennifer. He tries the stairs going down to F-Deck.

In the Fan Room in the F-Deck corridors. A functional space, with access to a number of machine spaces (fan rooms and boiler uptakes). Spencer and Jennifer are leaning against a wall, laughing.

"Pretty tough for a valet, this fella."

"He's an ex-Pinkerton. Will's father hired him to keep Will out of trouble…to make sure he always got back to the hotel with his wallet and watch after some crawl through the less reputable parts of town.."

"Kinda like we're doin' right now…oh shit!"

Foyet has spotted them from a cross-corridor nearby. He charges toward them. Spencer and Jennifer run around a corner into a blind alley. There is one door, marked CREW ONLY, and Spencer flings it open.

They enter a roaring RAN ROOM, with no way out but a ladder going down. Spencer latches the deadbolt on the door, and Foyet slams against it a moment later. Spencer grins at Jennifer, pointing to the ladder.

"After you, m'lady."

Spencer and Jennifer come down the escape ladder of Boiler Rooms Five and Six and look around in amazement. It is like a vision of hell itself with the roaring furnaces and black figures moving in the smoky glow. They run the length of the boiler room, dodging amazed strokers, and trimmers with their wheelbarrow of coal.

"Carry on! Don't mind us!"

Spencer shouts over the din.

They run through the open watertight door into Boiler Room Six. Spencer pulls her through the fiercely hot alley between two boilers and they wind up in the dark, out of sight of the working crew. Watching from the shadows, they see the stokers working in the hellish glow, shoveling coal into the insatiable maws of the furnace. The whole place thunders with the roar of the fires.

In the First Class Smoking Room amid unparalled luxury, Will sits at a card game, sipping brandy.

"We're going like hell I tell you. I have fifty dollars that says we make it into New York Tuesday night!"

Will looks at his gold pocket watch, and scowls, not listening.

In Boiler Room Six. The furnace roars, silhouetting the glistening strokers. Spencer kisses Jennifer's face, tasting the sweat trickling down from her forehead. They kiss passionately in the steamy, pounding darkness.

In Hold Room #2. Spencer and Jennifer enter and run laughing between the rows of stacked cargo. She hugs herself against the cold, after the dripping heat of the boiler room.

They come upon William Carter's brand new Renault touring car, lashing down to a pallet. It looks like a royal coach from a fairy tale, its brass trim and headlamps nicely set off by its deep burgundy color.

Jennifer climbs into the plushly upholstered back seat, acting very royal. There are cut crystals bud vases on the wall back there, each containing a rose. Spencer jumps into the driver's seat, enjoying the feel of the leather and wood.

"Where to, Miss?"

"To the stars."

Her hands come out of the shadows and pull him over the seat into the back. He lands next to her, and his breath seems loud in the quiet darkness. He looks at her and she is smiling. It is the moment of truth.

"Are you nervous?"

He asks her.

"Au contraire, mon cher."

He strokes her face, cherishing her. She kisses his artist's fingers.

"Put your hands on me Spencer."

She puts his hand on her breast and he kisses her and she slides down in the seat under his welcome weight.

In the Wireless Room Senior Wireless Operator Jack Phillips rapidly keys out a message. Junior Operator Bride looks through the huge stack of outgoing messages swamping them.

"Look at this one, he wants his private train to meet him. La dee da. We'll be up all bloody night on this lot."

Phillip starts to receive an incoming message from a nearby ship, the Leyland freighter Californian, which jams his outgoing signal. At such close rang, the beeps are deafening.

"Christ! It's that idiot on the Californian."

Cursing, Phillips furiously keys a rebuke.

Wireless Operator Cyril Evans of the Freighter Californian, pulls his earphone off his ear as the Titanic's sparks deafen him. He translates the message for Third Officer Groves.

"Stupid bastard. I try to warn him about the ice, and he says "Keep out. Shut up. I'm working Cape Race."

"Now what's he sending?"

"'No seasickness. Poker business good. Al.' Well that's it for me. I'm shutting down."

As Evans wearily switches off his generator, Groves goes out on deck. Outside it is revealed that the ship is stopped fifty yards from the edge of a field of pack ice and icebergs stretching as far as the eye can see.

Titanic is steaming hellbent through the darkness, hurling up white water at the bows.

On the rear window of the Renault, which is completely fogged up. Jennifer pulls it down. They are huddled under it, intertwined. Their faces are flushed and they look at each other wonderingly. She puts her hand on his face, as if making sure he is real.

"You're trembling."

"It's okay. I'm alright."

He lays his cheek against her chest.

"I can feel your heart beating."

She hugs his head to her chest, and just holds on for dear life.

"_Well, I wasn't the first teenage girl to get seduced in the backseat of a car, and certainly not at last, by several million. He had such fine hands, artist's hands, but strong too…roughened by work. I remember their touch even."_


	12. 11

1912

Lookouts Fleet and Lee and stomping their feet and swinging their arms trying to keep warm in the 22 knot freezing wind, which whips vapor of their breath away behind.

"You can smell ice, you know, when it's near."

Fleet tells Lee.

"Bollocks!"

"Well I can, alright."

In Boiler Room Six three stokers are telling two stewards which way Jennifer and Spencer went. The stewards move off toward the forward holds.

In Will and Jennifer's suite. Will stands at the the open. He stares at the drawing of Jennifer and his face clenches with fury. He reads the note again:** Darling, now you can keep us both locked in your safe, Jennifer**.

Foyet, standing behind him, looks over his shoulder at the drawing. Will crumples Jennifer. He takes the drawing in both hands as if to rip it in half. He tenses to do it, then stops himself.

"I have a better idea."

The two stewards enter Hold #2. They have electric torches and play the beams around the hold. They spot the Renault with its fogged up rear window and approach it slowly. They see Jennifer's passionate handprint, still there on the fogged up glass. One steward whips open the door.

"Got ya!"

The back seat is empty.

On the Forward Well Deck and Crow's Nest. Spencer and Jennifer, fully dressed come through a crew door onto the deck. They can barely stand they are laughing so hard.

Up above them in the Crow's Nest, lookout Fleet hears the disturbance below and look around and back down to the well deck, where he can see two figures embracing.

Spencer and Jennifer stand in each other's hands. Their breath clouds around them in the now freezing air, but they don't even feel the cold.

"When this ship docks, I'm getting off with you."

"This is crazy."

"I know. It doesn't make any sense. That's why I trust it."

Spencer pulls her to him and kisses her fiercely.

In the Crow's Nest Fleet nudges Lee.

"Cor..look at that, would ya."

"They're a bloody sight warmer than we are."

"Well if that's what it takes for us two to get warm, I'd rather not, if it's all the same."

They both have a good laugh at that one. It is Fleet whose expression falls first. Glancing forward again, he does a double take. The color drains out of his face.

A massive iceberg right in their path, 500 yards out.

"Bugger me!"

Fleet reaches past Lee and rings the lookout bell three times, then grabs the telephone, calling the bridge. He waits precious seconds for it to be picket up, never taking his eyes off the black mass ahead.

"Pick up, ya bastard!"

Inside the enclosed wheelhouse, Sixth Officer Moody walks unhurriedly to the telephone, picking it up.

"_Is somewhere there?"_

"Yes. What do you see?"

"_Iceberg right ahead!"_

"Thank you."

Moody hangs up and calls to Murdoch.

"Iceberg right ahead!"

Murdoch sees it and rushes to the engine room telegraph. While signaling "Full Speed Astern" he yells to Quartermaster Hitchins, who is at the wheel.

"Hard a' starboard."

"Hard a' starboard. The helm is hard over, sir."

Moody said standing behind Hitchins.

Chief Engineer Bell is just checking the soup he has warming on a steam manifold when the engine telegraph clangs, then goes…incredibly…to **Full Speed Astern. **He and the other Engineers just stare at it a second, unbelieving. Then Bell reacts.

"Full astern! FULL ASTERN!"

The engineers and greasers like madmen to close steam valves and start braking the mighty propeller shafts to a stop.

In Boiler Room Six, Leading Stoker Frederick Barrett is standing with 2nd Engineer James Hesketh when the red warning light and **STOP **indicator come on.

"Shut all damper! Shut 'em!"

From the Bridge Murdoch watches the burg growing with agonizing slowness. He holds his breath as the horrible physics play out.

In the Crow's Nest Frederick Fleet braces himself.

The bow of the ship thunders through the ocean and KRUUUNCH! The ship hits the berg on its starboard bow.

The ice smashing in the steel hull plates. The iceberg bumps and scrapes along the side of the ship. Rivets pop as the steel plate of the hull flexes under the load.

In #2 Hold the two stewards stagger as the hull buckles in four feet with a sound like thunder. Like a sledgehammer beating along outside the ship, the berg splits the hull plates and the sea pour in, sweeping them off their feet. The icy water swirls around the Renault as the men scramble for the stairs.

On G-Deck Aaron is tossed in his bunk by the impact.

In Boiler Room Six Barrett and Hesketh stagger as they hear the rolling thunder of the collision. They see the starboard side of the ship buckle in toward them and are almost swept off their feet by a rush of water coming in about two feet above the floor.

On the Forward Well Deck Spencer and Jennifer break their kiss and look up in astonishment as the berg sails past, blocking out the sky like a mountain. Fragments break off it and crash down onto the deck, and they have to jump back to avoid flying chunks of ice.

"Get back!"

Spencer tells Jennifer as they look at the berg pass them.

On the Bridge Murdoch rings the watertight door alarm. He quickly throws the switch that close them.

"Hard a'port!"

Judging the berg to be amidships, he is trying to clear the stern.

Barrett and Hesketh hear the door alarm and scramble through the swirling water to the watertight door between Boiler Rooms 6 and 5. The room is full of water vapors as the cold sea strikes the red hot furnaces. Barrett yells to the stokers scrambling through the door as it comes down like a slow quillotine.

"Go Lads! Go! Go!"

He dives through into Boiler Room 5 just before the door rumbles down with a CLANG.

Spencer and Jennifer rush to the starboard rail in time to see the berg moving aft down the side of the ship.

In his stateroom, surrounded by piles of plans while making nots in his ever-present book, Andrews looks up at the sound of a cut-crystal light fixture tinkling like a wind chime.

He feels the shudder run through the ship. His face shows his feelings. Too much of his sould is in this great ship for him not to feel its mortal wound.

In the First Class Smoking Room Gracie watches his highball vibrating on the table.

In the Palm Court with its high arched windows, Molly Brown holds up her drink to a passing waiter.

"Hey, can I get some ice here, please?"

Silently, a moving wall of ice fills the window behind her. She doesn't see it. It disappears astern.

In the Crow's Nest Fleet turns to Lee…

"Oy, mate…that was a close shave."

"Smell ice, can you? Bleedin' Christ!"

The alarm bells still clatter mindlessly, seeming to reflect Murdoch's inner state. He is in shock, unable to get a grip on what has happened. He just ran the biggest ship in history into an iceberg on its maiden voyage.

"Note the time. Enter it in the log."

Murdoch stiffly told Moody.

Captain Smith rushes out of his cabin onto the bridge, tucking in his shirt.

"What was that, Mr. Murdoch?"

"An iceberg, sir. I put her hard a'starboard and run the engines full astern, but it was too close. I tried to port around it, but she hit…and I…"

"Close the emergency doors."

"The doors are closed."

Together they rush out onto the starboard wing, and Murdoch points. Smith looks into the darkness aft, then wheels around to Fourth Officer Bohall.

"Find the Carpenter and get him to sound the ship."

In steerage, Aaron comes out into the hall to see what's going on. He sees dozen of rats running towards him in the corridor, fleeing the flooding bow. Aaron jumps aside as the rats run by.

"What the hell?"

In the his stateroom Anderson gets out of his top bunk in the dark and drops down to the floor. SPLASH!

"Cor! What in hell…?"

He naps on the light. The floor is covered with 3 inches of freezing water, and more coming in. He pulls the door open, and steps out into the corridor, which is flooded. Aaron is running towards him, yelling.

"It's bloody FLOODING!"

Anderson and Aaron start pounding on doors, getting every body up and out. The alarm spread in several languages.

On A Deck a couple of people have come out into the corridor in robes and slippers. A steward hurries along, reassuring them.

"Why have the engines stopped? I felt a shudder?"

"I shouldn't worry ma'am. We've likely thrown a propeller blade, that's the shudder you felt. May I bring you anything?"

Thomas Andrews brushes past them, walking fast and carrying an armload of rolled up ship's plans.

Spencer and Jennifer are leaning over the starboard rail, looking at the hull of the ship.

"Looks okay. I don't see anything."

"Could it have damaged the ship?"

"It didn't seem like much of a bump. I'm sure we're okay."

Behind them a couple of steerage guys are kicking the ice around the deck, laughing.

Steerage Forward Aaron and Anderson are in a crowd of steerage men clogging the corridors, heading aft away from the flooding. Many of them have grabbed suitcases and duffel bags, some of which are soaked.

"If this is the direction the rats were runnin', it's good enough for me."

Declan Anderson says as he and a lot of people try to get out of the flooding.

Bruce Ismay, dressed in pajamas under the topcoat, hurries down the corridor, headed for the bridge. An officious steward named Barnes comes along the other direction, getting the few concerned passengers back into their rooms.

"There's no cause for alarm. Please, go back to your rooms."

He is stopped in his tracks by Will and Foyet.

"Please, sir. There's no emergency…"

"Yes there is, I have been robbed. Now get the Master at Arms. Now you moron!"

In the chartroom Captain Smith is studying the communtator. He turns to Andrews, studying behind him.

"A five degree list in less than ten minutes."

Ship's Carpenter John Hutchinson enters behind them, out of breath and clearly unnerved.

"She's making water fast…in the forepeak tank and the forward holds, in boiler room six."

Ismay enters, his movements quick with anger and frustration. Smith glances at him with annoyance.

"Why have we stopped?"

"We've struck ice."  
"Well, do you think the ship is seriously damaged?"

"Excuse me."

Smith pushes past him, with Andrews and Hutchinson in tow.

Stokers and firemen are struggling to draw the fires. They are working in waist deep water churning around as it flows into the boiler room, ice cold and swirling with grease from the machinery. Chief Engineer Bell comes partway down the ladder and shouts.

"That's it, lads. Get the hell up!"

They scramble up the escape ladders.

On B-Deck the Forward Well Deck. The gentlemen, now joined by another man, leans on the forward rail watching the steerage men playing soccer with chunks of ice.

"I guess it's nothing too serious. I'm going back to my cabin to read."

Another man pops through the door wearing a topcoat over pajamas.

"So, did I miss the fun?"

Jennifer and Spencer come up the steps from the well deck, which are right next to the three men. They stare as the couple climbs over the locked gate.

A moment later Captain Smith rounds the corner, followed by Andrews and Carpenter Hutchinson. They have come down from the bridge by the outside stairs. The three men, their faces grim, crush right past Spencer and Jennifer. Andrew barely glances at her.

"Can you shore up?"

"Not unless the pumps get ahead."

The inspection party goes down the stairs to the well deck.

"This is bad."

Spencer tells her in a low voice.

"We have to tell Mother and Will."

"Now it's worse."

"Come with me, Spencer. I jump, you jump…Right?"

"Right."

Spencer follows Jennifer through the door inside the ship.

Spencer and Jennifer cross the B-Deck foyer, entering the corridor. Foyet is waiting for them in the hall as they approach the room.

"We've been looking for you miss."

Foyet follows and unseen, moves close behind Spencer and smoothly slips the diamond necklace into the pocket of his overcoat.

Will and Erin wait in the sitting room, along with the Master at Arms and two stewards. Silence as Jennifer and Spencer enter. Erin closes her robe at her throat when she sees Spencer.

"Something serious has happened."

Jennifer tells the room.

"That's right. Two things dear to me have disappeared this evening. Now that one is back…"

Will looks from Jennifer to Spencer.

"…I have a pretty good idea where to find the other."

He looks at the Master at Arms.

"Search him."

The Master at Arms steps up to Spencer.

"Coat off, mate."

Foyet pulls at Spencer's coat and Spencer shakes his head in dismay, shrugging out of it. The Master at Arms pats him down.

"This is horseshit."

"Will, you can't be serious! We're in the middle of an emergency and you…"

Steward Barnes pulls the Heart of the Ocean out of the pocket of Spencer's coat.

"Is this it?"

Jennifer is stunned. Needless to say, so is Spencer.

"That's it."

"Right then. Now don't make a fuss."

He starts to handcuff Spencer.

"Don't you believe it, Jennifer. Don't!"

"He couldn't have."

She said uncertain.

"Of course he could. Easy enough for a professional. He memorized the combination when you opened the safe."

"But I was with him the whole time."

"Maybe he did it while you were putting you clothes back on."

He told her low and cold.

"They put it in my pocket!"

"It's not even your pocket, son. Property of A.L. Ryerson."

Foyet shows the coat to the Master at Arms. There is a label inside the collar with the owner's name.

"That was reported stolen today."

"I was going to return it! Jennifer…"

Jennifer feels utterly betrayed, hurt and confused. She shrinks away from him. He starts shouting to her as Foyet and the Master at Arms drag him out into the hall. She can't look him in the eye.

"Jennifer, don't listen to them…I didn't do this! You know I didn't! You know it!"

She is devastated. Her mother lays a comforting hand on her shoulder as tears well up.

"Why do women believe men?"

Smith and Andrews come down the steps to the Mail Sorting Room and finds the clerks scrambling away to pull mail from the racks. They are furiously hauling wet sacks of mail up from the hold below.

Andrews climb partway down the stairs to the hold, which is almost full. Sack of mail float everywhere. The lights are still on below the surface, casting an eerie glow. The Renault is visible under the water, the brass glinting cheerfully. Andrews looks down as the water covers his shoe, and scrambles back up the stairs.

Andrews unrolls a big drawing of the ship across the chartroom table. It is a side elevation, showing all the watertight bulkheads. His hands are shaking. Murdoch and Ismay hover behind Andrews and the Captain.

"When can we get underway, damn it?"

Smith glares at Ismay and turns his attention to Andrew's drawings. The builder point to it for emphasis as he talks.

"Water 14 feet about the keel in ten minutes…in the forepeak…in all three holds…and in boiler room six."

"That's right."

"Five compartments. She can stay afloat with the first four compartments breached. But not five. Not five. As she goes down by the head the water will spill over the tops of the bulkheads…at E Deck…from one to the next…back and back. There's no stopping it."

"The pumps…"

"The pumps buy you time…but minutes only. From this moment, no matter what we do, Titanic will founder."

"But this ship can't sink!"

Ismay said unbelieving.

"She is made of iron, sir. I assure you, she can. And she will. It is a mathematical certainty."

Smith's face is heartbreaking.

"How much time?"

"An hour, two at most."

Ismay reels as his dream turns into his worst nightmare.

"And how many aboard, Mr. Murdoch?"

"Two thousand two hundred souls aboard, sir."

Smith turns to his employer.

"I believe you may get your headlines, Mr. Ismay."


	13. 12

1912

Andrews is striding along the boat deck, as seamen and officers scurry to uncover the boats. Steam is venting from pipes on the funnels overhead, and the din is horrendous. Speech is difficult adding to the crew's level of disorganization. Andrews sees some men fumbling with the mechanism of one of the Wellin davits and yells to them over the roar of steam.

"Turn to the right! Pulls the falls taut before you unchuck. Have you never had a boat drill?"

"No sir! Not with these new davits, sir."

He looks around, disgusted as the crew fumble with the davits, and the tackle for the falls…the ropes which are used to lower the boats. A few passengers are coming out on deck, hesitantly in the noise and bitter cold

From inside the sitting room they can hear knocking and voices in the corridor.

"I had better go dress."

Erin exits and Will crosses to Jennifer. He regards her coldly for a moment, then slaps her across the face.

"It is a little slut, isn't it?"

To Jennifer the blow is inconsequential compared to the blow her heart has been given. Will grabs her shoulders roughly.

"Look at me, you little…"

There is a loud knock on the door and an urgent voice. The door opens and their steward puts his head in.

"Sir, I've been told to ask you to please put on your lifebelt, and come up to the boat deck."

Steward Barnes tells him.

"Get out. We're busy."

Barnes presists, coming in to get the lifebelts down from the top of a dresser.

"I'm sorry about the inconvenience, Mr. LaMontagne, but it's Captain's orders. Please dress warmly, it's quite cold tonight."

"This is ridiculous."

"Not to worry, miss, I'm sure it's just a precaution."

In the corridor outside the stewards are being polite and obsequious they are conveying no sense of danger whatsoever.

Blackness. Then BANG! The door is thrown open and the lights are snapped on by a steward. The Cartmell family rouses from a sound sleep.

"Everybody up. Let's go. Put your lifebelts on."

In the corridor outside, another steward is going from door to door along the hall, pouncing and yelling.

"Lifebelts on. Lifebelts on. Everybody up, come on. Lifebelts on…"

People come out of the doors behind the steward, perplexed. Further away a Syrian woman asks her husband what was said. He shrugs.

In the Wireless Room Phillips is shocked.

"CQD, sir?"

"That's right. The distress call. CQD. Tell whoever responds that we are going down by the head and need immediate assistance."

Smith hurries out.

"Blimey."

"Maybe you ought to try that new distress call…S.O.S. It may be our only chance to use it."

Bride suggests.

Phillips starts sending the world's first S.O.S. Dit dit dit, da da da, dit dit dit…over and over.

Thomas Andrews looks around in amazement. The deck is empty except for the crew fumbling with the davits. He yells over the roar of the steam to First Officer Murdoch.

"Where are all the passengers?"

"They've all gone back inside. Too damn cold and noisy for them."

Andrews feels like he is in a bad dream. He looks at his pocket watch and heads for the foyer entrance.

A large number of First Class passengers have gathered near the staircase. They are getting indignant about the confusion. Molly Brown snags a passing steward.

"What's ya doing, sonny? You've got us all trussed up and now we're cooling our heels."

The steward backs away, actually stumbling on the stairs.

"Sorry, ma'am. Let me go and find out."

The jumpy piano rhythm of _Alexander's Ragtime Band_ comes out of the first class lounge a few yards away. Band Leader Wallace Hartley has assembled some of the men on Captain's orders, to allay panic.

Will's entourage comes up to the A-Deck foyer. Will is carrying the lifebelts, almost as an afterthought. Jennifer is like a sleepwalker.

"It's just the God damned English doing everything by the book."

"There's no need for language, Mr. LaMontagne."

Erin tells him and then turns to Penelope.

"Go back and turn the heaters on in my room, so it won't be too cold when we get back."

Thomas Andrews enters, looking around the magnificent room, which he knows is doomed. Jennifer, standing nearby, sees his broken expression. She walks over to him and Will goes after her.

"I saw the iceberg, Mr. Andrews. And I see it in your eyes. Please tell me the truth."

"The ship will sink."

"You're certain."

"Yes. In an hour or so…all this…will be at the bottom of the Atlantic."

"What?"

Now it is Will's turn to look stunned. The Titanic sinking?

"Please tell only who you must, I don't want to be responsible for a panic. And get to a boat quickly. Don't wait. You remember what I told you about the boats?

"Yes, I understand. Thank you."

Andrews goes off, moving among the passengers and urging them to put on their lifebelts and get to the boats.

Foyet and the Master at Arms are handcuffing Spencer to 4'' water pipe as a crewman rushes in anxiously and almost blurts to the Master at Arms.

"You're wanted by the Purser, sir. Urgently."

"Go on. I'll keep an eye on him."

Foyet reassures the Master at Arms. He pulls a pearl handled Colt .45 automatic from under his coat. The Master at Arms nods and tosses the handcuff key to Foyet, then exits with the crewman. Foyet flips the key in the air and catches it.

Junior Wireless Operator Bride is relaying a message to Captain Smith from the Cunard Liner Carpathia.

"Carpathia says they're making 17 knots, full steam for them, sir."

"And she's the only one who's responding?"

"The only one close sir. He says they can be here in four hours."

"Four hours!"

The enormity of it hits Smith like a sledgehammer blow.

"Thank you, Bride."

He turns as Bride exits, and looks out onto the blackness.

"My God."

He whispered to himself.

Lightoller sees Smith walking stiffly toward him and quickly goes to him. He yells into the Captain's ear, through cupped hands, over the roar of the steam.

"Hadn't we better get the women and children into the boats, sir?"

Smith just nods, a bit abstractly. The fire has gone out of him. Lightoller sees it in his face.

"Right! Start the loading. Women and children!"

The appalling din of escaping steam abruptly cuts off, leaving a sudden unearthly silence in which Lightoller's voice echoes.

"Number 26. Ready and…"

Wallace Harley raises his voilin to play.

The band has reassumbled just outside the First Class Entrance, port side, near where Lightoller is calling for the boats to be loaded. They strike up a waltz, lively and elegant. The music wafts over the ship.

"Ladies, please. Step into the boat."

Finally one woman steps across the gap, into the boat, terrified of the drop to the water far below.

"You watch. They'll put us off in these silly little boats to freeze, and we'll be back on board by breakfast."

A woman said in the crowd.

Will, Jennifer and Erin come out of the doors near the band.

"My brooch, I left my brooch. I must have it!"

Erin turns back to go to her room but Will takes her by the arm, refusing to let her go. The firmness of his hold surprises her.

"Stay here, Erin."

Erin sees his expression, and knows fear for the first time.

In the Steerage corridors and stairwell it is chaos, with stewards pushing their way through narrow corridors clogged with people carrying suitcases, duffel bags, children. Some have lifebelts on, others don't.

"I told the stupid sods no luggage. Aw, bloody hell!"

He throws up his hand at the sight of a family, loaded down with cases and bags, completely blocking the corridor.

Aaron and Declan push past the stewards, going the other way. They reach a huge crowd gathered at the bottom of the Main 3rd Class Stairwell. Aaron spots Emily with the rest of the Prentiss family, standing patiently with suitcases in hand. He reaches her and she grins, hugging him.

Declan pushes to where he can see what's holding up the group. There is a steel gate across the top of the stairs, with several stewards and seamen on the other side.

"Stay calm, please. It's not time to go up to the boats yet."

Near Declan, an Irismwoman stands stoically with two small children and their battered luggage.

"What are we doing, mummy?"

Her young son asks.

"We're just waiting dears. When they finish putting First Class people in the boats, they'll be startin' with us, and we'll want to be all ready, won't we."

Her son and daughter nod their heads.

Boat 7 is less than half full, with 28 aboard a boat made for 65.

"Lower away! By the left and right together, steady lads!"

The boats lurches as the falls start to pay out through the pulley blocks. The women gasp. The boat descends, swaying and jerking, toward the water 60 feet below. The passengers are terrified.

Under the surface, Spencer, looking apprehensively at the water rising up the glass. Spencer sits chained tp the water pipe, next to the porthole. Foyet sits on the edge of a desk. He puts a .45 bullet on the desk and watches it roll across and fall off. He picks up the bullet.

"You know…I believe this ship may sink. I've been asked to give you this small token of our appreciation…"

He punches Spencer hard in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him.

"Compliments of Mr. William LaMontagne."

Foyet flips the handcuff key in the air, catches it and puts in his pocket. He exits. Spencer is left gasping, handcuffed to the pipe.

At the stairwell rail on the bridge wing, Fourth Officer Boxhall and Quartermaster Rowe light the first distress rocket. It shoots into the sky and explodes with a thunderclap over the ship, sending out white starbursts which light up the entire deck as they fall.

As Ismay sees the starbusts he is starting to crack. Already at the breaking point from his immense guilt, the rocket panics him. He starts shouting at the officers struggling wit hthe falls of Boat 5.

"There is no time to waste!"

"Lower away! Lower away! Lower away!"

Fifth Officer Lowe, a baby-faced the youngest officer at 28, looks up from the tangled falls at the madman.

"Get out of the way, you fool!"

"Do you know who I am?"

Lowe, not having a clue nor caring, squares up to Ismay.

"You're a passenger. And I'm a ship's bloody officer. Now do what you're told! Steady men! Stand by the falls!"

"Yes, quite right. Sorry."

Ismay said numbly as he backs away.

Second Officer Lightoller is loading the boat nearest Will and Jennifer…Boat 6.

"Women and children only! Sorry sir, no men yet."

Daniel Marvin has his Biograph camera set up, cranking away…hoping to get an exposure off the rocket's light, he has Mary posed in front of the scene at the boats.

"You're afraid, darling. Scared to death. That's it!"

Either she sudden learned to act or she is petrified.

Jennifer watches the farewells taking place right in front of her as they step closer to the boat. Husbands waving goodbye to wives and children. Lovers and friends parted. Nearby Molly is getting a reluctant woman to board the boat.

"Come on, you heard the man. Get in the boat, sister."

"Will the lifeboats be seated according to class? I hope they're not too crowded…"

"Oh, Mother shut up!"

Erin freezes mouth open.

"Don't you understand? The water is freezing and there aren't enough boats…not enough by half. Half the people on this ship are going to die."

"Not the better half."

Will tells her like an ass.

It hits Jennifer like a thunderbolt. Spencer is third class. He doesn't stand a chance. Another rocket burst overhead, bathing her face in white light.

"You unimaginable bastard."

"Come on, Erin, get in the boat. These are the first class seats right up here. That's it."

Molly practically hands her over to Lightoller, then looks around for some other women who might need a push.

"Come on, Jennifer. You're next, darlin'."

Molly tells her.

Jennifer steps back shaking her head.

"Jennifer, get in the boat!"

"Goodbye mother."

Erin standing in the trippy lifeboat, can do nothing. Will grabs Jennifer's arm but she pulls free and walks away through the crowd. Will catches up to Jennifer and grabs her again, roughly.

"Where are you going? To him? Is that it? To be a whore to that gutter rat?"

"I'd rather be his whore than your wife."

He clenches his jaw and squeezes her arm viciously, pullling her back toward the lifeboat. Jennifer sucked in a breath and spat in his face. He looked disgusted and she runs into the crowd.

"Lower away!"

"Jennifer! JENNIFER!"

"Stuff a sock in it, would ya, Erin. She'll be along."

The boat lurches downward as the falls are paid out.


	14. 13

1912

Jennifer runs through a cluster of people. She looks back and a furious Will is coming after her. She runs breathlessly up to two proper looking men.

"That man tried to take advantage of me in the crowd!"

Appalled, they turn to see Will running towards them. Jennifer runs after the two men grab Will, restraining him. She runs through the First Class entrance.

Will breaks free and runs after her. He reaches the entrance, but runs into a knot of people. He pushes rudely through them.

At the A-Deck foyer. Will runs in, and down to the landing, pushing past the gentlemen and ladies who are filling up the stairs. He scans the A-Deck foyet. Jennifer is gone.

The hull of Titanic looms over Boat 6 like a cliff. It's enormous mass is suddenly threatening to those in a tiny boat. Quartermaster Hitchins, at the tiller, wants nothing but to get away from the ship. Unfortuantely his two seamen can't row. They flail like a duck with a broken wing.

"Keep pulling…away from the ship. Pull."

"Ain't you boys ever rowed before? Here, gimme those oars. I'll show ya how its done."

Molly climbs over Erin to get at the oars, stepping on her feet.

Around them the evacuation is in full swing, with boats in the water, others being lowered.

In the Master at Arms office, Spencer pulls on the pipe with all his strength. It's not budging. He hears gurgling sounds. Water pours under the door, spreading rapidly across the floor.

"Shit!"

He tries to pull one hand out of the cuffs, working until the skin is raw…no good.

"Help! Somebody! Can anybody hear me?"

He yells.

"This could be bad."

He said to himself.

The corridor outside is deserted. Flooded a couple of inches deep, Spencer's voice comes faintly through the door, but there is no one to hear it.

In the First Class corridor Thomas Andrews is opening stateroom doors, checking that people are out.

"Anyone in here?"

Jennifer runs up to him, breathless.

"Mr. Andrews, thank God! Where would the Master at Arms take someone under arrest?"

"What? You have to get to a boat right away!"

"No! I'll do this with or without your help, sir. But without will take longer."

"Take the elevator to the very bottom, go left, down the crewman's passage, than make a right."

"Bottom, left, right. I have it."

"Hurry, Jennifer."

Jennifer runs up as the last evevator operator is closing up his lift to leave.

"Sorry, miss, lifts are closed…"

Without thinking she grabs him and shoves him back into the lift.

"I'm through with being polite, god damn it! I may never be polite the rest of my life! Now take me down!"

The operator fumbles to close the gate and starts the lift.

Molly and the two seamen are rowing, and they've made it a hundred feet or so. Enough to see that the ship is angled down into the water, with the bow rail less than ten feet above the surface.

"Come on girls, join in, it'll keep ya warm. Let's go Erin. Grab an oar!"

Erin just stares at the spectacle of the great liner, its row of lights blazing, slanting down into the sullen black mirror of the Atlantic.

Through the wrough iron door of the elevator car Jennifer can see the deck going past. The lift slows. Suddenly ice water is swirling around her legs. She screams in surprise and so does the operator.

The car has landed in a foot of freezing water, shocking the hell out of her. She claws the door open and splashes out, hiking up her floor-length skirt so she can move. The lift goes back up, behind her, as she looks around.

"Left, crew passage."

She spots it and slogs down the flooded corridor. The place is understandably deserted. She is on her own.

"Right, right…right."

She turns into a cross-corridor, splashing down the hall. A row of doors on each side.

"Spencer? SPENCER?"

Spencer is hopeleslly pulling on the pipe again, straining until he turns red. He collapses back on the bench, realizing he's screwed. Then he hears her through the door.

"JENNIFER! In here!"

Jennifer hears his voice behind her. She spins and runs back, locating the right door, then pushes it open, creating a small wave.

She splashes over Spencer and puts her arms around him.

"Spencer, Spencer, Spencer…I'm sorry. God, I'm so sorry."

She kisses him.

"That guy Foyet put it in my pocket."

"I know, I know."

She hugs him and cries.

"See if you can find a key for these. Try those drawers. It's a little brass one."

She kisses his face and hugs him again, then starts to go through the desk.

"So…how did you find out I didn't do it?"

"I didn't."

She looks at him.

"I just realized I already knew."

They share a look, then she goes back to ransacking the room, searching drawers and cupboards. Spencer sees movenment out the porthole and looks out.

At Boat 1 while the seamen detach the falls. The boat rocks next to the hull. Lucille and Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon sits with ten others in a boat made for four times that many.

"I despise small boats. I just know I'm going to be seasick. I always get seasick in small boats. Good Heavens, there's a man down there."

In a lit porthole beneath the surface she sees Spencer looking up at her…a face in a bubble of light under the water.

Jennifer stops trashing the room, and stands there, breathing hard.

"There's no key in here."

They look around at the water, now almost two feet deep. Spencer has pulled his feet up onto the bench.

"You have to go for help."

Jennifer is nodding.

"I'll be right back."

She kisses him and turns to find help.

"I'll wait here."

She runs out, looking back at him once from the doorway, then splashes away. Spencer looks down at the swirling water.

Jennifer splashes down the hall to a stairwell going up to the next deck. She climbs the stairs and finds herself in part of the labyrinth of steerage hallways forward. She is alone here. A long groan of stressing metal echoes along the hall as the ship continues to settle. She runs down the hall, unimpeded now.

"Hello? Somebody?"

She turns a corner and runs along another corridor in a daze. The hall slopes down itno water which, shimmers, reflecting the light. The margin of the water creeps towards her. A young man appears, running through the water, sending up geysers of spray. He pelts past her without slowing, his eyes crazed.

"Help me! We need help!"

He doesn't look back. It is like a bad dream. The hull gongs with terrifying sounds.

The light flickers and go out, leaving utter darkness. Then they come back on. She finds herself hyperventilating. That one moment of blackness was the most terrifiying of her life.

A steward runs around the nearest corner, his arms full of lifebelts. He is upset to see someone still in his section. He grabs her forcefully by the arm, pulling her with him like a wayward child.

"Come on, then, let's get you topside, miss, that's right."

"Wait. Wait! I need your help! There's…"

"No need for panic, miss. Come along!"

He's not listening. And he won't let her go.

She shouts in his ear, and when he turns, she punches him squarely in the nose. Shocked, he lets her go and staggers back.

"To Hell with you!"

"See you there, buster!"

The steward runs off, holding his bloody nose.

She turns around and sees a glass case with a fire-axe in it. She breaks the glass with the firehose and seizes the axe, running back the way she came.

At the stairwell she looks down and gasps. The water was flooded the bottom five steps. She takes off her pink overcoat. She goes down and has to crouch to look along the corridor to the room where Spencer is trapped.

Jennifer plunges into the water, which is up to her waist and lets out a gasp and powers forward, holding the axe above her hear in two hands. She grimaces at the pain from the literally freezing water.

Spencer has climbed up on the bench, and is hugging the water pipe. Jennifer wades in, holding the axe above her head.

"Will this work?"

"We'll find out."  
They are both terrified, but trying to keep panic at bay. He positions the chain connecting the two cuffs, stretching it taut across the steel pipe. The chain is of course very short, and his exposed wrists are on either side of it.

"Try a couple practice swings."

Jennifer hefts the axes and thunks it into a wooden cabinet.

"Now try to hit the same mark again."

She swings hard and the blade thunks in four inches from the mark.

"Okay, that's enough practice."

He winces, bracing himself as she raises the axe. She has to hit a target about an inch wide with all the force she can muster, with his hands on either side.

"You can do it, Jennifer. Hit it as hard as you can, I trust you."

They both close their eyes.

The axe comes down. K-WHANG! Jennifer gingerly open her eyes to see Spencer grinning with two separate cuffs.

Jennifer drops the axe, all the strength going out of her.

"Nice work, there, Paul Bunyan."

He climbs down into the water next to her. He can't breathe for a second.

"Shit! Excuse me French. Shit shit shit, that is cold! Come on, let's go."

They wade out into the hall. Jennifer starts toward the stairs going up, but Spencer stops her. There is only about a foot of the stairwell opening visible.

"Too deep. We gotta find another way out."


	15. 14

Erin looks back at the Titanic, transfixed by the sight of the dying liner. The bowsprit is now barely above the waterline. Another of Boxhall's rockets explodes in the sky. KABOOM! It lights up the whole area, and half of the dozen boats in the water, spreading out from the ship.

"Now there's somethin' you don't see every day."

Molly tells Erin.

Scotland Road is the widest passageway in the ship, it is used by crew and steerage alike, and runs almost the length of the ship. Right now steerage passengers move along it like rufugees, heading aft.

CRASH! A wooden doorway splinters and the doors bursts open under the force of Spencer's shoulder. Spencer and Jennifer stumble through, into the corridor.

A steward, who was nearby herding people along marches over.

"Here you! You'll have to pay for that, you know. That's White Star Line property…"

Spencer and Jennifer turning together and look at him.

"SHUT UP!"

Spencer leds her past the dumbfounded steward. They join the steerage stranggler going aft. In places the corridor is almost completely blocked by large families carrying all their luggage.

Spencer tries a number of doors and iron gates along the way, finding them all locked. He sees a steward who just walks away.

"Can you let us out?"

He walks away. He shakes the gate to try to get it free.

"Can anyone hear me?"

An Irish woman gives Jennifer a blanket because she sees she is blue-lipped and shivering.

"Here, lass, cover yourself."

Spencer rubs her arms and tries to warm her up as they walk along. The woman's husband overs them a flask of whiskey.

"This'll take the chill off."

Jennifer takes a mighty belt and hands it to Spencer. He grins and follows suit.

"Cheers!"

On the boat deck, the officers has moved to the aft group of boats, numbers 9, 11, 13 and 15 on the starboard side and 10, 12, 14 and 16 on the port side. The pace of work is more frantic. The crew and officers running now to work davits, their previous complacency gone.

Will pushes through the crowd, scanning for Jennifer. Around him is chaos and confusion. A woman is calling for her child who has become separated from the crowd. A man is shouting over people's heads. A woman takes hold of Second Officer Lightoller's arm as he is about to launch Boat 10.

"Will you hold the boat a moment? I have to run back to my room for something…"

Lightoller grabs something and shoves her bodily into the boat. Thomas Andrews rushes up to him just then.

"Why are the boats being launched half full?"

Lightoller steps past him, helping a seaman clear a snarled fall.

"Not now, Mr. Andrews."

Andrews points to the water.

"There, look…twenty or so in a built for sixty five. And I saw one boat with only twelve. Twelve!"

"Well…we were not sure of the weight…"

"Rubbish! They were tested in Belfast with the weight of 70 men. Now fill these boats, Mr. Lightoller. For God's sake, man!"

Will sees Foyet hurrying toward him through the aisle connecting the port and starboard sides of the boat deck.

"She's not on the starboard side, either."

"We're running out of time. And this strutting marinet…"

He indicates Lightoller.

"…isn't letting any men in at all."

"The one on the other side is letting men in."

"Then that's our play. But we're still going to need some insurance. Come on."

Will charges off, heading forward, followed by Foyet. They pass a finely dressed elderly couple, Ida and Isador Strauss.

"Please, Ida, get into the boat."

"No. We've been together for forty years, and where you go, I go. Don't argue with me, Isador, you know it does no good."

He looks at her with sadness and great love. They embrace gently.

"Lower away!"

Lightoller tells the crew.

The bow railing goes under water. Water swirls around the the Captain and windlasses on the foc'sle deck. Smith strides to the bridge rail and looks down at the well deck. Water is shipped over the sides and the well deck is awash. Two men run across the deck, their feet sending up spray. Behind Smith, Boxhall fires another rocket. WHOOSH!

Aaron, standing with Emily and her family, hears Spencer's voice.

"Aaron!"

Aaron turns and sees Spencer and Jennifer pushing through the crowd. He and Spencer hug like brothers.

"The boats are all going."

"We gotta get up there or we're gonna be gargling saltwater. Where's Declan?"

Aaron points over the heads of the solidly packed crowd to the stairwell.

Declan has his hands on the bars of the steel gate which blocks the head of the stairwell. The crew opens the gate a foot or so and a few women are squeezing through.

"Women only. No men. No men!"

But some terrified men, not understanding English, try to rush through the gap, forcing the gate open. The crewmen and stewards push them back, shoving and punching them.

"Get back! Get back you lot! Lock it!"

They struggle to get the gate closed again, while one steward brandishes a small revolver. Another holds a fire axe. They lock the gate, and a cry goes up among the crowd, who surge forward, pounding against the steel and shouting in several languages.

"For the love of God, man, there are child down here! Let us up, so we can have a chance!"

But the crewmen are scared now. They have let the situation get out of hand and now they have a mob. Declan gives up and pushes his way back through the crowd, going down the stairs. He rejoins Spencer, Jennifer and Aaron.

"It's hopeless that way."

Declan tells the group.

"Well, whatever we're goin' to do, we better do it fast."

Aaron turns to Emily, praying she can understand him.

"Everyone…all of you…come with me now. We go to the boats. We go to the boats. Come now please!"

They can't understand him. They can see his urgency, but Oluf Prentiss, the patriarch of the family, shakes his head. He will not panic, and will not let his family go with this boy. Aaron turns to Emily.

"Emily please come with me."

She kisses him and stays with her family.

"Come on let's go."

Spencer tells him with a hand on Aaron's shoulder.

"I will never forget you, Emily."

Emily looks sad as her love runs with his friends.

CLUNK! Will opens his safe and reaches inside. As Foyet watches, he pulls out two stacks of bills, still banded by bank wrappers. Then he takes out the necklace, putting it in his pocket of his overcoat, and locks the safe.

"I make my own luck."

"So do I."

Will grins, putting the money in his pocket as they go out.

Spencer, Jennifer, Aaron and Declan are lost, searching for a way out. They push past confused passengers…past a mother changing her baby's diaper on top of an upturned steamer trunk…past a woman arguing heatedly with a man in Serbo-Croatian, a wailing child next to them…past a man kneeling to console a woman who is just sitting on the floor, sobbing…and past another man with an English/Arabic dictionary, trying to figure out what the signs mean, while his wife and children wait patiently

Spencer comes upon a narrow stairwell and they go up two decks before they are stopped by a small group pressed up against a steel gate. The steerage men are yelling at a scared steward.

"Go the the main stairwell, with everyone else. It'll get sorted out there."

Spencer takes one look at Jennifer and finally just loses it.

"God damn it! Son of a bitch!"

He grabs one end of the bench bolted to the floor on the landing. He starts pulling on it, and Declan and Aaron pitch in until the bolt shear and it breaks free. Jennifer figures out what they are doing and clears a path up the stairs between the waiting people.

"Move aside! Quickly move aside!"

Spencer and Declan run up the steps with the bench and ram it into the gate with all their strength. It rips loose from its tracks and falls outward, narrowly missing the by Spencer, the crowd surges through. Jennifer steps up to the cowering steward and says in her most imperious tone:

"If you have any intention of keeping your pathetic job with the White Star Line, I suggest you escort these good people to the boat deck…now."

Class wins out. He nods dumbly motions form them to follow.


	16. 15

Erin rows with Molly Brown, two other women and the incompetent sailors. She rests on her oars, exhausted, and looks back at the ship.

It slants down into the water, still ablaze with light. Night is above water forward of the bridge except for the foremast. Another rocket goes off, lighting up the entire area…there are a dozen boats moving outward from the ship.

Captain Smith is shouting to Boat 6 through a large metal megaphone.

"Come back! Come back to the ship!"

Chief Officer Wilde joins him, blowing his silver whistle.

On Boat 6 the whistles comes shrilly across the water. Quartermaster Hitchins grips the rudder in fear.

"The suction will pull us right down if we don't keep going."

"We got room for lots more. I say we go back."

Molly suggests.

"No! Its our lives now, not theirs. And I'm in charge of this boat ma'am! Now row!"

Captain Smith, at the rail of the boat deck, lowers his megaphone slowly.

"The fools."

As Will and Foyet cross the A-Deck foyer they encounter Benjamin Guggenheim and his valet, dressed white tie, tail coats and top hats.

"Ben, what's the occasion?"

"We have dressed in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen."

"That admirable, Ben."

He walks on.

"I'll sure and tell your wife…when I get to New York."

In the First Class Smoking Room there are still two cardgames in progress. The room is quiet and civilized. A silver serving cart, holding a large humidor, begins to roll slowly across the room. One of the card players takes a cigar from it as it rolls by.

"It seems we've been dealt a bad hand this time."

On the A-Deck Promenade Will and Foyet are walking aft with a purposeful stride. They pass Chief Baker Johghin, who is working up a sweat tossing desk chairs over the rail. After they go by, Joughin takes a break and pulls a bottle of scotch from a pocket, opening it. He drains it, and tosses it over the side too, then stands there a little unsteadily.

Panic is setting in around the remaining boats aft. The crowd here is now a mix of all three classes. Officers repeatedly warn men back from the boats.

The crowd presses in closer.

Seamen Scarott brandishes the tiller of boat 14 to discourage a close press of men who look ready to rush the boat. Several men break ranks and rush forward.

Lightoller pulls out his Webley revolver and aims it at them.

"Get back! Keep order!"

The men back down. Fifth Officer Lowe standing in the boat, yells to the crew.

"Lower away left and right!"

Lightoller turns and from the crowd, out of their sight, breaks his pistol open. Letting out a long breath, he starts to load it.

On the Starboard side Will and Foyet arrive in time to see Murdoch lowering his last boat.

"We're too late."

"There are still some boats forward. Stay with this one…Murdoch. He seems to be quite…practical.

In the water below there is another panic. Boat 13, already in the water but still attached to its fall, is pushed aft by the discharge water being pumped out of the ship. It winds up directly under boat 15, which is coming down the right on top of it.

The passengers shouts in panic to the crew above to stop lowering. They are ignored. Some men put their hands up, trying futilely to keep the 5 tons of boat 15 from crushing them.

Fred Barrett, the stoker, gets out his knife and leaps to the after falls, climbing rudely over people. He cuts the aft falls while another crewman cuts the forward lines. 13 drifts out from beneath 15 just seconds before it touches the water with a slap.

Will looking down from the rails hears gunshots…

Fifth Officer Lowe, in Boat 14 is firing his gun as a warning to a bunch of men, threatening to jump into the boat as it passes the open promenade on A-Deck.

"Stay back you lot!"

BLAM! BLAM!

The shots echo away on the boat deck on the starboard aft.

"It's starting to fall apart. We don't have much time."

Will sees three dogs run by. Someone has released the pets from the kennels.

Will sees Murdoch from the davits of boat 15 and start walking towards the bow. He catches up and falls in beside him.

"Mr. Murdoch, I'm a businessman, as you know, and I have a business proposition for you."

Spencer and Jennifer burst out onto the boat deck from the crew stairs just aft of the third funnel. They look at the empty davits.

"The boats are gone!"

She sees Colonel Gracie chugging forward along the deck, escorting two first class ladies.

"Colonel! Are there any boats left?"

"Yes, miss…there are still a couple of boats all the way forward. This way I'll lead you!"

Spencer grabs her hand and they sprint past Gracie, with Declan and Aaron close behind.

They run by the band that is still playing even with all of the chaos!

"Music to drawn by. Now I know I'm in First Class."

Declan said sarcastically.

Water pours like a spillway over the forward railing on B-Deck.

Murdoch on his team on A-Deck are loading Collapsible Car the forward-most davits.

The crowd is sparse, with most people still aft. Will slips his hand out of the pocket of his overcoat and into the waist pocket of Murdoch's great coat, leaving the stack of bills there.

"So we have an understanding then?"

"As you've said."

Murdoch nods curtly.

Will, satisfied, steps back. He finds himself waiting next to J. Bruce Ismay. Ismay does not meet his eyes, nor anyone's. Foyet comes up to Will at that moment.

"I've found her. She's just over on the port side. With him."

"Women and children? Any more women and children?"

Murdoch glances at Will.

"Anyone else then?"

Will looks longingly at his boat…his moment has arrived.

"God damn it to hell!"

He and Foyet head for the port side, taking a short cut through the bridge.

Bruce Ismay, seeing his opportunity, steps quickly into Collapsible C. He stares straight ahead, not meeting Murdoch's eyes.

"Take them down."

On the Port side Lightoller is getting people into Boat 2. He keeps his pistol in his hand at the point. Twenty feet below them the sea is pouring into the doors and windows of B deck stateroom, They can hear the roar of water cascading into the ship.

"Women and children, please. Women and children only. Step back, sir."

Even with Spencer's arms wrapped around her, Jennifer is shivering in the cold.

Near her a woman with two young daughters looks into the eyes of her husband she know she may not see again.

"Goodbye for a little while…only for a while."

To his two little girls.

"Go with mummy."

The woman stumbles to the boat with the children, hiding her tears from them. Beneath the false good cheer, the man is choked with emotion.

"Hold mummy's hand and be a good girl. That's right."

Some of the women are stoic, others are overwhelmed by emotion and have to be helped into the boats. A man scribbles a note and hands it to a woman who is about to board.

"Please get this to my wife in DeMoines, Iowa."

Spencer looks at Declan and Aaron.

"You better check out the other side."

They nod and run off, searching for a way around the deckhouse.

"I'm not going without you."

"Get in the boat, Jennifer."

Will walks up just then.

"Yes. Get in the boat, Jennifer."

She is shocked to see him. She steps instinctively to Spencer. Will looks at her, standing there shivering in her wet dress.

"My God, look at you. Here put this on."

He hands her his coat.

She numbly shrugs into it.

"Quickly ladies. Step into the boat. Hurry, please!"

"Go on. I'll get the next one."

"No. Not without you!"

She doesn't even care that Will is standing right there. He sees the emotion between Spencer and Jennifer and his jaw clenches. But then he leans close to her and says…

"There are boats on the other side that are allowing men in. Spencer and I can get off safely. Both of us."

"I'll be alright. Hurry up so we can get going…we got our own boat to catch."

He smiles reassuringly.

"Get in…hurry up, it's almost full."

Lightoller grabs her and pulls her towards the boat. She reaches out for Spencer and her fingers brush his for a moment. Then she finds herself stepping down into the boat. It's all a rush and blur.

"Lower away!"

The two men watch at the rail as the boat begins to descend.

"You're a good liar."

"Almost as good as you."

"I always win, Spencer. One way or another."

He looks at him smiling.

"Pity I didn't keep that drawing. It's going to be worth a lot more by morning."

Spencer knows he is screwed. He looks down at Jennifer, not wanting to waste a second of his last view of her.

The ropes going through the pulleys as the seamen start to lower. All sound going away…Lightoller giving orders, his lips moving…but Jennifer hears only the blood pounding in her ears…this cannot be happening…a rocket burst above in slow-motion, outlining Spencer in a halo of light…Jennifer's hair blowing in slow motion as she gazes up at him, descending away from him…she sees his hand trembling, the tears at the corner of his eyes, and cannot believe the unbearable she is feeling…

Jennifer is still staring up, tears pouring down her face.

Suddenly she is moving. She lunges across the women next to her. Reaching the gunwale, climbing it…

Hurls herself out of the boat to the rail of the A-Deck promenade, catching it, and scrambling over the rail. The Boat 2 continues down. But Jennifer is back on Titanic.

"No Jennifer! NOOO!:

Spencer spins from the rail, running for the nearest way down to A-Deck.

Will too has seen her jump. She is willing to die for this man, this gutter scum. He is overwhelmed by a rage so all-consuming it eclipses all thought.

Spencer bangs through the doors to the foyer and sprints down the stairs. He sees her coming into A-Deck foyer, running toward him, Will's long coat flying out behind her as she runs.

They meet at the bottom of the stairs, and collide in an embrace.

"Jennifer, Jennifer, you're so stupid, you're such an idiot…Jennifer why did you do that, why?"

And all the while he's kissing her and holding her as tight as he can.

"You jump, I jump, right?"

"Right."


	17. 16

Will comes in and runs to the railing. Looking down he sees them locked in their embrace. Foyet comes up behind Will and puts a restraining hand on him, but Will whips around, grabbing the pistol from Foyet's waistband in a fast move.

He runs along the rail and down the stairs. As he reaches the landing above them he raises the gun. Spencer sees him and he grabs Jennifer to start running.

Will starts shooting and the carved cherub at the foot of the center railing explodes. Spencer and Jennifer run down the stairs going down to the next deck. Will fires again, running down the steps toward them. A bullet blows a divet out of the oak paneling behind Spencer's head as he pulls Jennifer down the next flight of stairs.

Will steps on the skittering head of the cherub statue and goes sprawling. The gun clatters across the marble floor. He gets up, and reeling drunkenly goes over to retrieve it.

The bottom of the grand staircase is flooded several feet deep. Spencer and Jennifer come down the stairs two at a time and run straight into the water, fording across the room to where the floor slopes up, until they reach dry footing at the entrance to the dining saloon.

Will reels down the stairs in time to see Spencer and Jennifer splashing through the water toward the dining saloon. He fires twice. Big gouts of spray near them, but he's not a great shot.

The water boils up around his feet and he retreats up the stairs a couple of steps. Around him the woodward groans and creaks.

"Enjoy your time together!"

Foyet arrives next to him. Will suddenly remembers something and starts to laugh.

"What could possibly be funny?"

"I put the diamond in my coat pocket. And I put my coat…on her."

He turns to Foyet with a sickly expression, his eyes glittering.

"I give it to you…if you can get it."

He hands Foyet the pistol and goes back up the stairs. Foyet thinks about it…then slogs into the water. The ice water is up to his waist as he crosses the pool into the dining saloon.

In the dining saloon Foyet moves among the tables and ornate columns, searching...listening…his eyes tracking rapidly. It is a sea of tables, and they could be anywhere. A silver serving trolley rolls downhill, bumping into tables and pillars.

He glances behind him. The water is following him into the room, advancing in a hundred foot wide tide. The reception room is now a roiling lake, and the grand staircase is submerged past the first landing. Monstrous groans echo through the ship.

Spencer and Jennifer are crouched behind a table, somewhere in the middle. They see the water advancing towards them, swirling over the water. They crawl ahead of it to the next row of tables.

"Stay here."

Spencer whispers to her. He moves off as…

Foyet moves over one row and looks along the tables. Nothing.

The ship groans and creaks. He moves another row.

A metal cart…five feet tall and full of stacks of china dishes. It starts to roll down the aisle between tables.

The cart rolls towards Jennifer. It hits a table and the stacks of dishes topple out, exploding across the floor and showering her.

She scrambles out of the way and…Foyet spins, seeing her. He moves rapidly toward her, keeping the gun aimed…

That's when Spencer tackles him from the side. They slam together into a table, crashing over it, and toppling to the floor. They land in the water which is flowing rapidly between the tables.

Spencer and Foyet grapple in the icy water. Spencer jams his knee down on Foyet's hand, breaking his grip on the pistol, and kicks it away. Foyet scrambles up and lunges at him, but Spencer gutpunches him right in the solar plexus, doubling him over.

"Compliments of the Madison Reids."

He grabs Foyet and slams him into an ornate column. Foyet drops to the floor with a splash, stunned.

"Let's go."

Spencer and Jennifer run aft…uphill…entering the gallery. Behind them the tables have become islands in a lake…and the far end of the room is flooded up to the ceiling.

Foyet gets up and looks around for his gun. He pulls it up out of the water and wades after them.

They run through the gallery and Jennifer spots the stairs. She starts up and Spencer grabs her hand. He leads her down.

They crouch together on the landing as Foyet runs to the stairs. Assuming they have gone up he climbs up them two at a time.

They wait for the footsteps to recede. A long creaking groan. Then they hear it…a crying child. Below them. They go down a few steps to looks along the next deck.

The E-Deck corridor is awash, about 50 feet away, is a little boy about 3. The water swirls around his legs and he is wailing.

"We can't leave him."

Spencer nods and they leave the promise of escape up the stairwell to run to the child. Spencer scoops up the kid and they run back to the stairs but…a torrent of water comes pouring down the stairs like rapids. In seconds it is too powerful for them to go against.

"Come one."

Charging the other way down the flooding corridor, they blast up spray with each footstep. At the end of the hall are heavy double doors. As Spencer approaches them he sees water spraying through the gap between the doors right up to the ceiling. The doors groan and start to crack under the tons of pressure.

"Back! Go back!"

Jennifer pivots and runs back the way they came, taking a turn into a cross-corridor. A man is coming the other way. He sees the boy in Spencer's arms and cries out, grabbing him away from Spencer. The man starts cursing him in Russian. He runs on with the boy…

"No! Not that way! Come back!"

The double doors blast open. A wall of water thunders into the corridor. The father and child disappear instantly.

Spencer and Jennifer run as a wave blasts around the corner, foaming from floor to ceiling. It gains on them like a locomotive. They make it to a stairway going up.

They pound up the steps as white water swirls up behind them. They slam into the steel gate that blocks the top of the stairs. They grip the bars.

A terrified steward standing guard on the landing above turns to run at the sight of the water thundering up the stairs.

"Wait! Wait! Help us! Unlock the gate."

The steward runs on. The water wells up around Spencer and Jennifer, pouring through the gate and slamming them against it. In seconds it is up to their waist.

"Help us! Please!"

The steward stops and looks back. He sees Spencer and Jennifer at the gate, their arms reaching through…see the water pouring through the gate onto the landing.

"Fucking hell!"

He runs back, slogging against the current. He pulls a key ring from his belt and struggles to unlock the padlock as the water fountains up around them.

The lights short out and the landing is plunged into darkness and he drops the keys.

"I'm sorry I dropped the keys."

He runs up the stairs.

"Come back! Come back!"

Jennifer screams and Spencer goes under the water to find the keys. Spencer comes back to the surface.

"I got them."

"Try the sharp one. Sharp one!"

He puts his hand under the water through the gate to unlock the gate. The key is in the lock but it won't go in.

"Oh no! It won't go in!"

"Hurry Spencer!"

The water is raising up and Spencer turns the key and the gates open.

"Jennifer. Go Jennifer go!"

The water rushes out. And they run up the stairs to the next deck.


	18. 17

Will comes reeling out of the first class entrance, looking wild-eyed. The water lurches down the deck towards the bridge. Waltz music wafts over the ship. Somewhere the band is still playing.

A little girl, maybe two years old, is crying along in the alcove. She looks up at Will beseechingly. Will moves on without a glance back…reaching a large crowd clustered around Collapsible A just aft of the bridge. He sees Murdoch and a number of crewmen struggling to drag the boat to the davits, with no luck.

Will pushes forward, trying to signal Murdoch, but the officer ignores him.

Nearby Declan and Aaron are being pushed forward by the crowd behind. Purser McElroy pushes them back, getting a couple of seamen to help him. He brandishes his gun, waving it in the air, yelling for the crowd to stay back.

Lightoller, with a group of crew and passengers, is trying to get Collapsible B down the roof. They slide it down a pair of oars leaned against the deck house.

"Hold it! Hold it!"

The weight of the boat snaps the oars and it crashes to the deck, upside down. Tony and Timothy jump back as the boat nearly hits them.

Spencer and Jennifer run up seemingly endless stairs as the ship groans around them.

"Keep going up!"

Spencer tells Jennifer.

Murdoch, at Collapsible A, is no longer in control. The crowd is threatening to rush the boat. They push and jostle, yelling and shouting at the officers. The pressure from behind pushes them forward, and one guy falls off the edge of the deck into the water less than ten feet below.

"Give us a chance to live, you limey bastards!"

Declan said frustrated.

Murdoch fires his Webley twice in the air, then points it at the crowd.

"I'll shoot any man who tries to get past me."

Will steps up to him.

"We had a deal, damn you."

Murdoch pushes him back, pointing the pistol at Will.

"Get back!"

A man next to Declan rushes forward and Declan is shoved from behind. Murdoch shoots the first man, and seeing Declan coming forward, puts a bullet into his chest.

Declan collapses and Aaron grabs him, holding him in his arms as his lifes flows out over the deck.

"You bastard!"

Aaron tells him angrily.

Murdoch turns to his men and salutes smartly. Then he puts the pistol to his temple and…BLAM! He drops like a puppet with the strings cut and topples over the edge of the boat deck into the water only a few feet below.

Will stares in horror at Murdoch's body bobbing in the black water. The money floats out of the pocket of his greatcoat, the bills spreading across the surface.

The crew rush to get the last few women aboard the boat.

"Any more women or children?"

Purser McElroy calls above the confusion.

The little girl crying in the alcove. Will scoops her up and runs forward, cradling her in his arms.

"Here's a child! I've got a child!"

He forces his way through the crowd and tells McElroy.

"Please…I'm all she has in the world."

McElroy nods curtly and pushes him into the boat. He spins with his gun, brandishing it in the air to keep the other men back. Will gets into the boat, holding the little girl. He takes a seat with the women.

"There, there."

He pats the child's back.

Thomas Andrews stands in the First Class Smoking Room, in front of the fireplace, staring at the large painting above the mantle. The fire is still going in the fireplace.

The room is empty except for Andrews. An ashtray falls off the table. Behind him Spencer and Jennifer run into the room, out of breath and soaked. They run through, toward the aft revolving door…then Jennifer recognizes him. She sees that his lifebelt is off, lying on a table.

"Wait! Wait! Mr. Andrews. Won't you even make a run for it?"

"I'm sorry that I didn't build you a stronger ship, young Jennifer."

A tear rolls down his cheek.

"It's going fast…we've got to move."

Spencer tells her.

Andrews pick up his lifebelt and hands it to her.

"Good luck to you, Jennifer."

"And to you, Mr. Andrews."

She hugs him.

Spencer pulls her away and they run through the revolving door.

The band finishes the waltz. Wallace Hartley looks at the orchestra members.

"Right, that's it then."

They leave him, walking forward along the deck. Hartley puts his violin to his chin and bows the first notes of _Nearer My God to Thee_. One by one the band members turn, hearing the lonely melody.

Without a word they walk back and take their places. They join in with Hartley, filling out the sound so that it reaches all over the ship on this still night. The vocalist begins: "If in my dreams I be, nearer my God to thee…"

A seaman pulls off his lifebelt and catches up to Captain Smith as he walks to the bridge. He enters the enclosed wheelhouse and closes the door. He is alone, surrounded by the gleaming brass instruments. He seems to inwardly collapse.

In the First Class Smoking Room Andrews stands like a statue. He pulls out his pocket watch and checks the time. Then he opens the face of the mantle clock and adjusts it to the correct time: 2:12 a.m. Everything must be correct.

In Will's parlour suite water swirls in front the private promenade deck. Jennifer's paintings are submerged. The Picasso transforms under the water's surface. Degas' colors run. Monet's water lilies come to life.

Elderly Ida and Isador Strauss stare at the ceiling in their First Class Cabin. They're holding hands like young lovers. Water pours into the room through a doorway. It swirls around the bed, two feet deep rising fast.

In a Steerage Cabin somewhere in the bowels of the ship, the young Irish Mother is tucking her two young children into bed. She pulls up the covers, making sure they are all warm and cozy. She lies down with them on the bed, speaking soothingly and holding them.

Back on the boat deck we see a wave travel up the boat deck as the bridge house sinks into the water.

On the port side Collapsible B is picked up by water. Working frantically, the men try to detach it from the falls so the ship won't drag it under. Colonel Gracie hands Lightoller a pocket knife and he saws furiously at the ropes as the water swirls around his legs. The boat, still upside down, is swept off the ship. Men start diving in, swimming to stay with it.

In Collapsible A Will sits next to the wailing child, whom he has completely forgotten. He watches the water rising around the men as they work, scrambling to get the ropes cut so the ship won't drag the collapsible under.

Aaron removes the lifebelt from Declan's body and struggles to put it on as the water rises around him.

Captain Smith, standing near the wheel, watches the black water climbing the windows of the enclosed wheelhouse. He has the stricken expression of a damned soul on Judgment Day. The windows bursts suddenly and a wall of water edged with shards of glass slams into Smith. He disappears in a vortex of foam.

Collapsible A is hit by a wave as the bow plunges suddenly. It partially swamps the boat, washing it along the deck. Over a hundred passengers are plunged into the freezing water and the area around the boat becomes a frenzy of splashing, screaming people.

As men are trying to climb into the collapsible, Will grabs an oar and pushes them back into the water.

"Get back! You'll swamp us!"

Aaron, swimming for his life, gets swirled under a davit. The ropes and pulleys tangle around him as the davit goes under the water, and he is dragged down. Underwater he struggles to free himself, and then kicks back to the surface. He surfaces, gasping for air in the freezing water.

Wallace Hartley sees the water rolling rapidly up the deck towards them. He holds the last note of the hymn in a sustain, and then lowers his violin.

"Gentlemen, it has been a privilege playing with you tonight."


	19. 18

Spencer and Jennifer run out of the Palm Court into a dense crowd. Spencer pushes his way to the rail and looks at the state of the ship. The bridge is under water and there is chaos on deck. Spencer helps her put her lifebelt on. People stream around them, shouting and pushing.

"Okay…we keep moving aft. We have to stay on the ship as long as possible."

They push their way aft through the panicking crowd.

Collapsible A is whirled like a leaf in the currents around the sinking ship. It slams against the side of the forward funnel.

"Row! Row you bastards!"

Will tells the crew in the boat.

Nearby Aaron is drawn up against the grating of a stokehold vent as water pours through it. The force of tons of water roaring down the ship traps him against it, and he is dragged down under the surface as the ship sink. He struggles to free himself but cannot.

Suddenly there is a conclusion deep in the bowels of the ship as a furnace explodes and a blast of hot air belches out of the ventilator, ejecting Aaron. He surfaces in a roar of foam and keeps swimming.

Spencer and Jennifer clamber over the A-Deck aft rail. Then, using all his strength, he lowers her toward the deck below, holding on with one hand. She dangles, then falls. Spencer jumps down behind her.

They join a crush of people literally clawing and scrambling over each other to get down the narror stairs to the well deck…the only way aft.

Seeing that the stairs are impossible. Spencer climbs over the B-Deck railing and helps Jennifer over. He lowers her again, and she falls in a heap. Baker Joughin, now three sheets to the wind, happens to be next to her. He hauls Jennifer to her feet. Spencer drops down and the three of them push through the crowd across the well deck. Near them, at the rail, people are jumping into the water.

The ship groans and shudders. The man ahead of Spencer is walking like a zombie.

"Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…"

"You wanna walk a little faster through the valley, there?"

They stay cables along the top of the funnel snap, and they lash like steel whips down into the water. Will watches as the funnel topples from its mounts. Falling like a temple pillar twenty eight feet across it whomps into the water with a tremendous splash. People swimming underneath it disappear in an instant.

Aaron, a few feet away, is hurled back by a huge wave. He comes up, gasping…still swimming. The water pouring into the open end of the funnel draws in several swimmers. The funnel sinks, disappearing, but…

Hundreds of tons of water pour down through the 30 foot hole where the funnel stood, thundering down into the belly of the ship. A whirlpool forms, a hole in the ocean, like an enormous toilet-flush. T.W. McCauley, the gym instructor swims in a frenzy as the vortex draws him in. He is sucked down like a spider going down a drain.

Aaron, nearby, swims like Hell as more people are sucked down behind him. He manages to get clear. He's going to live no matter what it takes.

Water roars through the doors and windows, cascading down the stairs like a rapids. John Jacob Astor is swept down the marble steps to A-Deck, which is already flooded…a roiling vortex. He grabs the headless cherub at the bottom of the staircase and wraps his arms around it.

Astor looks up in time to see the 30 foot glass dome overhead explode inward with the wave of water washing over it. A Niagra of sea water thunders down into the room, blasting through the first class opulence. It is the Armageddon of elegance.

Belowdecks the flooding is horrific. Walls and doors are splintered like kindling. Water roars down corridors with pile-driver force.

The Cartmell family is at the top of a stairwell, jammed against a locked gate like Spencer and Jennifer were. Water boils up the stairwell behind them. Bert Cartmell shakes the gate futilely, shouting for help. Little Haley wails as the water boils up around them all.

Jennifer and Spencer struggle to climb the well deck stairs as the ship tilts.

Drunk Baker Joughin puts a hand squarely on Jennifer's butt and shoves her up onto the deck.

"Sorry, miss!"

Hundreds of people are already on the poop deck, and more are pouring up every second. Spencer and Jennifer cling together as they struggle across the tilting deck.

As the bow goes down, the Stern rises. In Boat 2, which is just off the stern, passengers gape as the giant bronze propellers rise out of the water like gods of the deep behind them.

People are jumping from the well deck, the poop deck, the gangway doors. Some hit debris in the water and are hurt or killed.

On the poop deck Spencer and Jennifer struggle aft as the angle increases. Hundreds of passengers, clinging to every fixed object on deck, huddle on their knees around Father Byles, who has his voice raised in prayer. They are praying, sobbing, or just staring at nothing, their minds blank with dread.

Pulling himself from handhold to handhold, Spencer tugs Jennifer aft along the deck.

"Come on, Jennifer. We can't expect God to do all the work for us."

They struggle on, pushing through the praying people. A man loses his footing ahead and slides towards helps him.

The propellers are twenty feet above the water and rising faster.

Spencer and Jennifer make it to the stern rail, right at the base of the flagpole. They grip on the railing, jammed between other people. It is the spot where Spencer pulled her back onto the ship, just two nights…and a lifetime…ago.

Above the wailing and sobbing, Father Byles' voice carries, cracking with emotion.

"…I saw new heavens and a new earth. The former heavens and the former earth had passed away and the sea was no longer."

The light flicker, threatening to go out. Jennifer grips Spencer as the stern rises into a night sky ablaze with stars.

"I also saw a new Jerusalem, the holy city coming down out of heaven from God, beautiful as a bride prepared to meet her husband. I heard a loud voice from the throne ring out this is God's dwelling among men. He shall dwell with them and they shall be his people and He shall be their God who is always with them."

Jennifer stares around her at the faces of the doomed. Near them are the Prentiss family, clinging together stoically. Emily looks at her briefly, and her eyes are infinitely sad.

Jennifer sees a young mother next to her, clutching her five year old son, who is crying in terror.

"Shh. Don't cry. It'll be over soon, darling. It'll all be over soon."

"He shall wipe every tear from their eyes. And there shall be no more death or mourning, crying out or pain, for the former world has passed away."

Father Byles finishes the prayer.

As the ship tilts further everything not bolted down inside shifts.

Cupboards burst open in the pantry showering the floor with tons of china. A piano slides across the floor, crashing into a wall. Furniture tumbles across the Smoking Room floor.

On the A-Deck Promenade passengers lose their grip and slide down the wooden deck like a bobsled run, hundreds of feet before they hit the water. Penelope slips as she struggles along the railing and slides away screaming.

At the Stern the propellers are 100 feet out of the water and rising. Panicking people leap from the poop deck rail, fall screaming and hit the water like mortar rounds. A man falls from the poop deck, hitting the bronze hub of the starboard propeller with a sickening smack.

Swimmers look up and see the stern towering over them like a monolith, the propellers rising against the stars. 110 feet. 120.

A man jumps from the stern rail. He falls forever right past one of the giant screws. The waters rushes up.

Erin hears the sounds of the dying ship and the screaming people come across the water. She sees the spectacle of the Titanic, her lights blazing, reflecting in the still water. Its stern is high in the air, angles up over forty five degrees. The propellers are 150 feet out of the water. Over a thousand passengers cling to the decks, looking from a distance like a swarm of bees.

The image is shocking, unbelieveable, unthinkable. Erin stares at the spectacle, unable to frame it or put it into any proportion.

"God Almighty."

Molly Brown says as she sees the ship.

The great liner's lights flicker.

In the Engine Room Chief Engineer Bell in the darkness hangs onto a pipe at the master braker panel. Around him men climb tilted cyclopean machines with electric hand-torches. It is a black hell of breaking pipes, spraying water, and groaning machinery threating to tear right out of its bedplates.

Water sprays down, hitting the breaker panel, but Bell will not leave his . The breakers kick. He slams them in again and WHOOM! A blast of light! Something melts and arcing fills the engine room with nightmarish light.

The lights go out all over the ship. Titanic becomes a vast black silhouette against the stars.

In Collapsible C Bruce Ismay has his back to the ship, unable to watch the great steamer die. He is catatonic with remorse, his mind overloaded. He can avert his eyes, but he can't block out the sounds of dying people and machinery.

A louding cracking come across the water.

Near the third funnel a man clutches the ship's rail. He stares down as the deck splits right between his feet. A yawning chasm opens with a thunder of breaking steel.

Foyet is clutching the railing on the roof of the Officers' Mess. He watches in horror as the ship's structure rips apart right in front of him. He gapes down into a widening maw, seeing straight down into the bowels of the ship, amid a booming concussion like the sound of artillery. People falling into the widening crevasse look like dolls.

The stay cables on the funnel part and snap across the decks like whips, ripping off davits and ventilators. A man is hit by a whipping cable and snatched. Another cable smashes the rail next to Foyet and it rips free. He falls backward into the pit of jagged metal.

Fires, explosions and sparks light the yawning chasm as the hull splits down through nine decks to the keel. The sea pours into the gaping wound.

In the Engine Room it is a thundering black hell. Men scream as monstrous machinery comes apart from them, steel frames twisting like taffy. Their torches illuminate the roaring, foaming demon of water as it races at the machines. Trying to climb they are overtaken in seconds.

The Stern half of the ship, almost four hundred feet long, falls back toward the water. On the poop deck everyone screams as they feel themselves plummeting.

Swimming in the water directly under the stern a few unfortunates shriek as they see the keel coming down on them like God's boot heel. The massive stern section falls back almost level, thundering down into the sea and pushing out a mighty wave of displaced water.

Spencer and Jennifer struggle to hold onto the stern rail. They feel the ship seemingly right itself. Some of those praying think it is salvation.

"We're saved."

Several people said.

Spencer looks at Jennifer and shakes his head, grimly.

Now the horrible mechanics play out. Pulled down by the awesome weight of the flooded bow, the buoyant stern tilts up rapidly. They feel the rush of ascent as the fantail angles up again. Everyone is clinging to benches, railings, ventilators…anything to keep from sliding as the stern lifts.

The stern goes up and up, past 45 degrees, then past sixty.

People start to fall, sliding and tumbling. They skid down the deck, screaming and flailing to grab onto something. They wrench other people loose and pull them down as well. There is a pile-up of bodies at the forward rail. The Prentiss family falls one by one.

Jennifer sees Emily fall and she tears up.

"We have to move!"

Spencer climbs over the stern rail and reaches back for Jennifer. She is terrified to move. He grabs her hand.

"Come on! I've got you!"

Spencer pulls her over the rail. It is the same place he pulled her over the rail two nights earlier, going the other direction. She gets over just as the railing is going horizontal, and the deck vertical. Spencer grips her fiercely.

The stern is now straight up in the air…a rumbling black monolith standing against the stars. It hangs there like that for a long grace note, its buoyancy stable.

Jennifer lies on the railing, looking down fifteen stories to the boiling sea at the base of the stern section. People near them, who didn't climb over, hang from the railing, their legs dangling over the long drop. They fall one by one, plummeting down the verticle face of the poop deck. Some of them bounce horribly off deck benches and ventilators.

Spencer and Jennifer lie side by side on what was the verticle face of the hull, gripping the railing, which is now horizontal. Just beneath their feet are the gold letters TITANIC emblazoned across the stern.

Jennifer stares down terrified at the black ocean waiting below to claim them.

Spencer looks to his left and sees Baker Joughin, crouching on the hull, holding onto the railing. It is a surreal moment.

"Helluva night."

Joughin nods a greeting.

The final relentess plunge begins as the stern section floods. Looking down a hundred feet to the water, we drop like an elevator with Spencer and Jennifer.

"Take a deep breath and hold it right before we go into the water. The ship will suck us down. Kick for the surface and keep kicking. Do not let go of my hand. We're gonna make it Jennifer. Trust me."

She stares at the water coming up at them, and grips his hand harder.

"I trust you."

Below them the poop deck is disappearing. The plunge gathers speed…the boiling surface engulfs the docking bridge and then rushes up the last thirty feet.

The stern descends into the boiling sea. The name TITANIC disappears, and the tiny figures of Spencer and Jennifer vanish under the water.

Where the ship stood, now there is nothing. Only the black ocean.


	20. 19

Jennifer and Spencer get supported from the section. She rises out of the water. Looking for Spencer.

"Spencer! Spencer! Spencer!"

The screams of the people in the water is deafening.

She swims looking for Spencer. A man pushes her under, trying to climb on top of her…senselessly trying to get out of the water, to climb onto anything.

"Spencer!"

Spencer hears her scream and swims over to the man.

"Hey get off her! Get away from her!"

Spencer punches him repeatedly, pulling her free,

"Swim, Jennifer! SWIM!"

She tries, but her strokes are not as effective as his because of her lifebelt. They break out of the clot of people. He has to find some kind of floatation, anything to get her out of the freezing water.

"Keep swimming. Keep moving. Come on, you can do it."

All around them there is a tremendous wailing, screaming and moaning…a chorus of tormented souls. And beyond that…nothing but black water stretching to the horizon. The sense of isolation and hopelessness is overwhelming.

Spencer strokes rhythmically, the effort keeping him from freezing.

"Look for something floating. Some debris…wood…anything."

"It's so cold."

"I know. I know. Help me, here. Look around."

His words keeps her focused, taking her mind off the wailing around them. Jennifer scans the water, panting, barely able to draw a breath. She turns and screams.

A black French Bulldoy, swimming right at her like a seamonster in the darkness, it's coal eyes bugging. It motors past her, like it is headed for Newfoundland.

Beyond it Jennifer sees something in the water.

"What's that?"

Spencer sees what she is pointing to, and they make for it together. It is a piece of wooden debris, intricately carved. He pushes her up and she slithers onto it belly down.

But when Spencer tries to get up onto the thing, it tilts and submerges, almost dumping Jennifer off. It is clearly only big enough to support her.

"Stay on it Jennifer."

"Spencer."

He clings to it, close to her, keeping his upper body out of the water as best as he can.

Their breath floats around them in a cloud as they pant from exertion. A man swims towards them, homing in on the piece of debris. Spencer warns him back.

"It's just enough for this lady…you'll push it under."

"Let me try at least, or I'll die soon."

"You'll die quicker if you come any closer."

"Yes, I see. Good luck to you then. God bless."

The man swims off.

"Keep moving Jennifer, keep moving."

He rubs her arms trying to keep her warm.

The boat is overloaded and half-flooded. Men cling to the sides in the water. Others, swimming, are drawn to it as their only hope. Will, standing in the boat, slaps his oar in the water as a warning.

"Stay back! Keep off!"

Aaron, exhausted and near the limit, makes it almost to the boat. Will clubs him with the oar, cutting open his scalp.

"You don't…understand…I have…to get…to America."

Aaron said.

"It's that way!"

Will points his oar towards the screaming people.

Aaron floats panting each breath in agony. You see the spirit leave him.

In Aaron's eyes he sees Will in slow motion, yelling and wielding the oar. A demon in a tuxedo. The image fades to black.

Spencer and Jennifer still float amid a chorus of the damned. Spencer sees the ship's officer nearby, Chief Officer Wilde. He is blowing his whistle furiously, knowing the sound will carry over the water for miles.

"The boats will come back for us, Jennifer. Hold on just a little longer. They had to row away from the suction and now they'll be coming back."

She nods, his words helping her. She is shivering uncontrollably, her lips blue and her teeth chattering.

"Thank God for you Spencer."

People are still screaming, calling to the lifeboats.

"Come back! Please! We know you can hear us. For God's sake!"

A woman yells.

"Please…help us. HELP US!"

A man yells.

Erin has her ears covered against the wailing in the darkness. The first class women in the boat sit, stunned, listening to the sounds of hundreds screaming.

"They'll pull us right down I tell ya!"

Hitchen tells them.

"Aw knock it off, yer scarin' me. Come on girl, grab your oars. Let's go. Come on."

Molly tells everyone but nobody moves.

The women won't meet her eyes. They huddle into their clothes.

"I don't understand a one of you. What's the matter with ya? It's your men out there! We got plenty a' room for more."

"If you don't shut that hole in yer face, there'll be one less in this boat!"

Erin keeps her ears covered and her eyes closed, shutting it all out.

In Boat One Sir Cosmo and Lucille Duff-Gordon sit with ten other people in a boat that is two thirds empty. They are two hundred yards from the screaming in the darkness.

"We should do something."

Fireman Hendrickson said.

Lucille squeezes Cosmo's hand and pleads him with her eyes. She is terrified.

"It's out of the question."

Sir Cosmo tells them.

The crewmembers, intimidated by a nobleman, acquiesce. They hunch guiltily, hoping the sound will stop soon.

Twenty boats…most half full, float in the darkness. None of them make a move.

Spencer and Jennifer drift under the blazing stars. The water is glassy, with only the faintest undulating swell. Jennifer can actually see the stars reflecting on the black mirror of the sea.

Spencer squeezes the water out of her long coat, tucking it in tightly around her legs. He rubs her arms. His face is chalk within the darkness. A low moaning in the darkness around them.

"It's getting quiet."

Jennifer observes.

"Just a few more minutes. It'll take them a while to get the boats organized…"

Jennifer is unmoving, just staring into space. She knows the truth. There won't be any boat. Behind Spencer she sees that Officer Wilde has stopped moving. He is slumped in his lifebelt, looking almost asleep. He has died of exposure already.

"I don't know about you, but I intend to write a strongly worded letter to the White Star Line about all this."

She laughs weakly, but it sounds like a gasp of fear. Jennifer finds his eyes in the dim light.

"I love you Spencer."

He takes her hand.

"No…don't say your good-byes, Jennifer. Don't you give up. Don't do it."

"I'm so cold."

"You're going to get out of this…you're going to go on and you're going to make babies and watch them grow and you're going to die an old lady, warm in your bed. Not here. Not this night. Do you understand me?"

"I can't feel my body."

"Jennifer, listen to me. Listen. Winning that poker game and keeping those tickets were the best things that ever happened to me."

Spencer is having trouble getting the breath to speak.

"It brought me to you. And I'm thankful, Jennifer. I'm thankful."

His voice is trembling with the cold which is working its way to his heart.

But his eyes are unwavering.

"You must do me this honor…promise me you will survive…that you will never give up…no matter what happens…no matter how hopeless…promise me now, and never let go of that promise."

"I promise."

"Never let go."

"I promise. I will never let go, Spencer. I'll never let go."

She grips his hand and they lie with their heads together. It is quiet now, except for the lapping of water.

Fifth Officer Lowe, the impetuous young Welshman, has gotten Boats 10, 12 and Collapsible D together with his own Boat 14. A demon of energy, he's had everyone hold the boats together and is transferring passengers from 14 into the others, to empty his boat for a rescue attempt.

As the women step gingerly across the baot, Lowe sees a shawled figure in too much of a hurry. He rips the shawl off, and finds himself staring into the face of a man. He angrily shoves the stowaway into another boat.

"HOW DARE YOU!"

He turns to his crew of three.

"Right, man the oars."

The beam of an electric torch plays across the water like a searchlight as boat 14 comes towards the people.

The torch illuminates floating debris, a poignant trail of flotsam: a violin, a child's wooden soldier, a framed photo of a steerage family. Daniel Marvin's wooden Biograph camera.

Then their white lifebelts bobbing in the darkness like signoposts, the first bodies come into the torch's beam. The people are dead but not drowned, killed by the freezing water. Some look like they could be sleeping. Other stare with frozen eyes at the stars.

Soon bodies are so thick the seamen cannot row. They hit the oars on the heads of floating men and women…a wooden thunk. One seaman throws up. Lowe sees a mother floating with her arms frozen around her lifeless baby.

"We waited too long."

The worst moment of his life.

"Well keep checking keep looking. IS ANYONE ALIVE OUT THERE? CAN ANYONE HEAR ME?"

Spencer and Jennifer are floating in the black water. The stars reflect in the mill pond surface, and the two of them seem to be floating in interstellar space. They are absolutely still. Their hands are locked together.

Jennifer is staring upwards at the canopy of stars wheeling above her. The music is transparent, floating…as the long sleep steals over Jennifer, and she feels peace.

Jennifer's face is pale, like the faces of the dead. She seems to be floating in a void. Jennifer is in a semi-hallucinatory state. She knows she is dying. Her lips barely move as she sing a scrap of Spencer's song:

"Come Josephine in my flying machine…"

She sees the stars. Like she's never seen them. The Milky Way a glorious band from horizon to horizon.

A shooting star flares…a line of light across the heavens.

Jennifer's hair is dusted with frost crystals. Her breathing is so shallow, she is almost motionless. She sees the silhouette of a boat crossing the stars. She sees men in it, rowing so slowly the oars lift out of the syrupy water, leaving weightless pearls floating in the air. The voices of the men sound slow and distorted.

Then the lookout flashes his torch toward her and the light flares across the water, silhouetting the bobbing corpses in between. It flicks past her motionless form and moves on. The boat is 50 feet away, and moving past her. The men look away.

Jennifer lifts her head to turn to Spencer. Her hair is frozen to the wood under her.

"Spencer."

She touches his shoulder with her free hand. He doesn't respond. Jennifer gently turns his face towards her. It is rimed with frost. He seems to be sleeping peacefully. But he is not asleep.

Jennifer can only stare at his still face as the realization goes through her.

"Spencer! There's a boat Spencer!"

She sobs as she tries to wake him up.

All hope, will and spirit leave her. She looks at the boat. It is further away now, the voices fainter. Jennifer watches them go.

She closes her eyes. She is so weak, and there just seems to be no reason to even try.

And then…her eyes snap open.

She raises her head suddenly, cracking the ice as she rips her hair off the wood. She calls out, but her voice is so weak they don't hear her. The boat is invisible now, the torch light a star impossibly far away. She struggles to draw breath, calling again.

In the boat Lowe hears nothing behind him. He points to something ahead, turning the tiller.

Jennifer struggles to move. Her hand, she realizes, is actually frozen to Spencer's. She breaths on it, melting the ice a little, and gently unclasps their hand, breaking away a thin tinkly film.

"I won't let go. I promise."

She kisses his hand and releases him. He sinks into the black water.

Jennifer rolls off the floating staircase and plunges into the icy water. She swims to Chief Officer Wilde's body and grabs his whistle. She starts to blow the whistle with all the strength in her body. Its sound slap across the still water.

Lowe whips around at the sound of her whistle.

"Row back! That way! Pull!"


	21. 20

1996

"Fifteen hundred people went into the sea when Titanic sank from under us. There were twenty boats floating nearby and only one came back. One. Six were saved from the water, myself included. Six out of fifteen hundred."

Ashley, Dave, Kevin and Derek are crying. The reality of what happened here 84 years before has hit them like never before. With her story Jennifer has put them on Titanic in its final hours…and for the first time, they do feel like graverobbers.

Dave for the first time has forgotten about the diamond.

"Afterward, the seven hundred people in the boats had nothing to do but wait…wait to die, wait to live, wait for an absolution which would never come."

1912

In the boats. Bruce Ismay is in a trance, just staring and trembling. Will is sipping from and flask offered to him by a black-faced stoker. Molly has her arms around Erin.

Jennifer, lying swaddled. She sees Lowe light a green flare and wave it as everyone shouts and cheers. Jennifer doesn't react. She floats beyond all human emotion.

The Carpathia sits nearby, as boats row towards her.

Jennifer, outside of time, outside of herself, coming into Carpathia, barely able to stand…Jennifer being draped with warm blankets and given hot tea.

Bruce Ismay climbs aboard. He has the face and eyes of a damned soul. As he walks along the hall, guided by a crewman towards the doctor's cabin, he passes rows of seated and standing widows. He must run the gauntlet of their accusing gazes.

In the afternoon of the 15th. Will is searching the faces of the widows lining the deck, looking for Jennifer. The deck of Carpathia is crammed with huddled people, and even the recovered lifeboats of Titanic. On a hatch cover sits an enormous pile of lifeboats.

"You won't find any of your people back here, sir. It's all steerage."

Will ignores the steward and goes among the wrecked group, looking under shawls and blankets at one bleak face after another.

Jennifer is sipping hot tea. Her eyes focus on him as he approaches her. He barely recognizes her. She looks like a refugee, her matted hair hanging in her eyes.

"Yes, I lived. How awkward for you."

"Jennifer…your mother and I have been looking for you…"

She holds up her hand, stopping him.

"Please don't. Don't talk. Just listen. We will make a deal, since that is something you understand. From this moment you do not exist for me, nor I for you. You shall not see me again. And you will not attempt to find me. In return I will keep my silence. Your actions last night need never come to light, and you will get to keep the honor you have carefully purchased."

She fixes him with a glare as cold and hard as the ice which changed their lives.

"Is this in any way unclear?"

"What do I tell your mother?"

"Tell her that her daughter died with the Titanic."

She stand, turning to the rail. Dismissing him.

"You're precious to me, Jennifer."

"Jewels are precious. Goodbye, Mr. LaMontagne."

Will looks at her, in a way he know, he does truly love her.

After a moment, he turns and walks away.

"_That was the last time I ever saw him. He married, of course, and inherited his millions. The crash of 28 hit his interests hard, and he put a pistol in his mouth that year. His children fought over the scraps of his estate like hyenas, or so I read."_

Jennifer is at the railing of the Carpathia. On April 18th. She gazes at the Statue of Liberty, welcoming her home with her glowing torch. She thinks about what Aaron had told her that it would look like.

An immigration officer walks over to her.

"Name?"

"Reid. Jennifer Reid."

The officer steers her towards a holding area for processing. Jennifer walks forward with the dazed immigrants. The boom of a photographer's magnesium flashes causes them to flinch, and the glare is blinding. There is a sudden disturbance near her as two men burst through the cordon, running to embrace an older woman along the survivors, who cries out with joy. The reporters converge on this emotional scene, and flashes explode.

Jennifer uses this moment to slip away into the crowd. She pushes through the jostling people, moving with purpose, and none challenges her in the confusion.

1996

"Can you exchange one life for another? A caterpillar turns into a butterfly. If a mindless incest can do it, why couldn't I? Was it any more unimaginable then the sinking of the Titanic?"

"We never found anything on Spencer. There's no record of him at all."

Kevin tells her.

"No, there wouldn't be, would there? And I've never spoken of him until now, not to anyone."

She looks to Ashley.

"Not even your grandfather. A woman's heart is a deep ocean of secrets. But now you know there was a man named Spencer Reid, and that he saved me, in every way what a person can be saved. I don't even have a picture of him. He exists now only in my memory."

Jennifer closes her eyes.

At the desultory wrap party for the expedition is in progress. Kevin is getting drunk. Dave stands at the rail, looking down into the black water. Ashley comes to him, offering him a beer. She puts her hand on his arm.

"I'm sorry."

"We we're pissin' in the wind the whole time."

Dave notices a figure move through the light far down at the stern of the ship.

"Oh shit."

Jennifer walks through the shadows of the deck machinery. Her nightgown blows in the wind. Her feet are bare. Her hands are clutched at her chest, almost as if she is praying.

Dave and Ashley are running down the stairs from the top deck are hauling ass.

Jennifer reaches the stern rail. Her gnarled fingers wrap over the rail. Her foot steps up on the gunwale. She pushes herself up, leaning forward. Over her shoulder, she sees the black water glinting far below.

Dave and Ashley run up behind her.

"Grandma, wait! Don't…"

Jennifer turns her head, looking at them. She turns further, and they see that she has something in her hand. Something she was about to drop overboard. It is the Heart of the Ocean.

Dave sees his holy grail in her hand and his eyes go wide. Jennifer keeps it over the railing where she can drop it anytime.

"Don't come any closer."

"You had it the entire time?"

1912

The photographs flashes go off like a battle behind her. She has her hands in her pockets. She stops, feeling something and pulls out the necklace. She stares at it in amazement.

1996

Jennifer smiles at Dave's incomprehension.

"The hardest part about being so poor was being so rich. But every time I thought of selling it, I thought of Will. And somehow I always got by without his help."

She holds it out over the water. Kevin and Derek come up behind Dave, reacting to what is in Jennifer's hand.

"Holy shit."

Kevin says.

"Don't drop it Jennifer."

"Rush her."

Kevin says.

"It's hers, you schmuck."

Dave says to Kevin.

"Look, Jennifer, I…I don't know what to say to a woman who tries to jump off the Titanic when it's not sinking, and jumps back onto it when it is…we're not dealing with logic here, I know that…but please…think about this a second."

"I have. I came all the way here so this could go back to where it belongs."

The massive diamond glitters. Dave edges closer and holds out his hand.

"Just let me hold it in my hand, Jennifer. Just once."

He comes closer to her. It is reminiscent of Spencer slowly moving up to her at the stern of Titanic.

Surprisingly, she calmly places the stone in the palm of his hand, while still holding onto the necklace. Dave gaves at the object of his quest. An infinity of cold scalpels glint in its blue depths. It is mesmerizing, It fits in his hand just like he imagined.

"My God."

His grip tightens on the diamond.

He looks up, meeting her gaze. Her yes are suddenly infinitely wise and deep.

"You look for treasures in the wrong place, Mr. Rossi. Only life is priceless, and making each day count."

His fingers relax. He opens them slowly. Gently she slips the diamond out of his hand. He feels it sliding away.

Then, with an impish little grin, Jennifer tosses the necklace over the rail. Kevin gives a strangled cry and rushes to the rail in time to see it hit the water and disappear forever.

"Aww! That really sucks, lady!"

David Rossi goes through ten changes before he settles on his reaction…he laughs. He laughs until the tears come to his eyes. Then he turns to Ashley.

"Would you like to dance?"

Ashley grins at him and nods. Jennifer smiles. She looks up at the stars.

In the black heart of the ocean, the diamond sinks, twinkling end over end, into the infinate depths.

In Jennifer's cabin. Her photographs.

Jennifer as a young actress in California, radiant…a theatrically lit studio publicity shot. Jennifer and her husband, with their two children. Jennifer with her son at his college graduation. Jennifer with her children and grandchildren at her 70th birthday. A collage of images of a life lived well.

Another photograph taken in 1920. She is at the beach, sitting on a horse at the shoreline. The Santa Monica pier, with its rollercoaster is behind her. She is grinning, full of life.

Jennifer is on her bed and is very still. She could be asleep or maybe something else.

On the Titanic like the day before it struck the iceberg. There is a crowd of everyone around the grand staircase. There is a man at the top looking at the clock has his back turned. When he turns around it's Spencer. Smiling he holds his hand out towards Jennifer.

Jennifer goes into his arms, a girl of 17. And kisses him passionately. The passengers, officers and crew of the RMS Titanic smile and applaud in the utter silence of the abyss.


	22. Thank you

Thanks for reading this story and reviewing.

I wrote this story based on the movie because I felt like this story can be used in any television characters. I wrote this to honor those souls that were lost on April 15, 1912.

You will always be remembered.

Kathryn "Katie" Bjordahl


End file.
